


Red Poppy

by rillrill



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Business, Established Relationship, F/F, Family Drama, Older Woman/Younger Woman, QPQVerse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 02:44:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6266404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Privacy was a deliberate choice for Eliza Schuyler, the publicity-shy daughter of the Secretary of Defense. Falling for her boss (who happened to be married to a closeted United States Senator) complicated that — but they made it work. </p><p>Now, on the cusp of a presidential campaign, everything is about to change.</p><p>Set two years after the events of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5880157/chapters/13551823">Quid Pro Quo</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You know how you think you're going to take a break? And then your brain is like, "Over your cold dead body are you gonna take a damn break?" and won't leave you alone with one particular idea? Yeah. This is that. Welcome back.
> 
> This takes place in the same universe as [Quid Pro Quo](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5880157/chapters/13551823), and if you haven't read that, I would suggest catching up so as to not be totally confused. (Spoiler alert: Martha Washington and Eliza Schuyler are bangin'.) Some of my previous oneshots about their relationship can be read [here](http://lizdexia.tumblr.com/tagged/eliza-x-martha), to get a feel for what they're About. Otherwise... just bear with me.
> 
> (At this performance, the role of Martha Washington will be played by Audra McDonald.)

The lobby of the building that houses Mount Vernon Capital is cool and sleek, all marble with glass and chrome accents. It looks to Eliza's eye a bit like the art director for The Jetsons had mind-sex with the ghost of Steve Jobs, which, of course, perhaps isn't far off, because Wozniak used to play Segway polo with Lawrence Washington. The resulting building — designed specifically for the company, a modernist behemoth in downtown Fairfax befitting of all five-hundred-odd employees it houses — is a fully automated, exquisitely charmless void in a metro area known for its dull, all-encompassing lack of charm.

The gate beeps as she passes her badge over it once, glass panels parting like the Red Sea. She glances down at the clearance indicator that flashes conspicuously on the screen. _Executive Level_ , it announces to anyone around who might be looking. She scoffs internally: as if she needs reminding. This was another design quirk enforced by their fearless leader, an egotist to the bone.

The trick, as Eliza has found it, is that the clearance sign does nothing but promote insecurity and ill rapport between all but those with the top-level designation. She worked that out her first week here, upon her flush of embarrassment seeing _Junior Associate Leve_ l flash across the screen every day of her first four months at the company. It only ever made her work harder. Underachievement is not an option. Junior Associate Level was certainly never an option. And now, as she strides toward the elevator bank now, heels clicking purposefully on the marble floor, she sees a man in the crowded car about to depart stick out his hand to prevent the door from closing.

"That's all right," she says with a little wave. "I take the executive car." And the doors on the regular elevator, the associate elevator, ding shut with a sad little whomp-whomp that might as well be a cartoon slide whistle. Eliza sighs to herself as she passes her badge in front of the keypad for the exec elevator, and notes with satisfaction as the doors immediately spring open. To each pretension, a silver lining.

The elevator takes her directly to the top floor. She takes a moment to look herself over in the mirrored doors as it ascends; fixes her neatly trimmed hair, plucks a piece of lint from her smart white dress, sips the cold-brew iced coffee in her other hand. Consults the calendar app on her phone. Four meetings and then lunch, which will be a working one, at the sushi place they practically keep in business with their working lunches by now. Fair enough. It's a Monday, after all.

The nameplate on her office door has been polished over the weekend, she notices; it gleams, engraved stainless steel. _Eliza Schuyler, Executive Liaison to the CFO_. A meaningless title, really, but nice to have the word "executive" tacked on at the beginning. She sets her handbag down beside her desk and allows herself a silent moment of decompression before tapping the button on the back of the monitor and bringing her iMac to life.

"Good morning, darling."

She looks up abruptly, at where Martha has silently snuck in through the internal door that adjoins their offices. "Good morning, ma'am," she answers automatically. Already back on work mode. It always takes Martha a little longer to readjust, but she gets a little leeway. Being southern, and all. Warmth does not come so easily to Eliza herself.

Martha does not lean, as a rule. She stands tall and at attention always, her posture Pilates-straight and decisive. She approaches Eliza's desk and taps two fingers on the tablet that sits there. "You should follow up with the guys from the Seed Fund," she says. "Their guy called twice this morning before you got in."

Eliza nods. Swipes right on the tablet and types in the passcode, bringing the screen to life. "What am I telling them?" she asks absentmindedly.

"We'll give them fifteen," Martha shrugs, and Eliza blinks.

"They're asking for ten."

"And we'll give them fifteen," she repeats, and then, off Eliza's evident confusion, relents to explain. "I liked their... gusto, so to speak. Whatever you call it. I'm going off my gut here. I think it's an offer they'll be amenable to."

"Fair enough, ma'am," Eliza mutters as she scrolls through the tablet. Double-taps on the MVC app and calls up her own portal, then finds the Seed Fund's insight profile within. Right. These guys. Their initial meeting had gone disastrously, with one of the pair suffering an allergy attack from a stray peanut halfway through, but their portfolio was interesting and so were the plans they'd submitted, a for-profit charity shoring up the farming industry in Chile. Fifteen million seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of their plans. Eliza frowns. It suddenly seems less convincing altogether.

"Don't draft any contracts yet," she says decisively, swiping away from the plan itself and scrolling back to their profile. "Gut feeling."

Martha pats her softly on the shoulder. "That's my girl," she says, before stepping away. "We'll talk to them over lunch."

"Right. I'll have the place scrubbed free of peanuts," Eliza says, now newly absorbed in the analytics in front of her. Something seems a little off about this. Bad investment, her gut tells her, but she's not the expert here. Better to change the subject until after she's talked more with them. "Has George been enjoying himself in Iowa?"

Martha shakes her head. "He's certainly polling as such, but not particularly, from what I gather. I'm flying out after the meeting to..."

"Perform," Eliza finishes, and Martha clicks her tongue.

"Small price to pay," she shrugs. "There's a rally tonight, and Beth Rutledge has shook every hand in the state so far. It looks good for me to be there." And it does, that's the clincher, the thing that makes Eliza's stomach twist a little bit. Martha, as a rule, makes a tremendous accessory to a man like George Washington: accomplished of her own volition, but never one to compete for the spotlight; Martha, like Eliza herself, has always preferred the indulgences of private life. Which is why the campaign convolutes the matter beyond comfort, to her eye. The campaign, if it's successful — and depending on how the Iowa caucus shakes out, it seems as though it very much may be — has the potential to rearrange everything as they know it.

"Well," Eliza says, turning off the tablet and setting it aside with neat finality. "May I suggest packing Purell?"

"George has plenty, I'm sure," Martha intones, and Eliza snickers despite herself. A small ding from the bottom of her handbag indicates a new text, and she digs out her phone, but doesn't look at the screen just yet. Instead, she focuses on Martha, setting it aside, face-down on the desk.

Martha seems to hesitate for a moment before she adds, "I think you should come with me."

"To Iowa?" Eliza has to clarify. The question comes entirely out of left field. This wasn't on the agenda. Martha lifts a shoulder in a shrug.

"It wouldn't hurt," she adds. "Nor is it likely to raise any suspicion. We can leave after the lunch meeting, I checked your calendar."

"Okay," says Eliza, relaxing. "That's good. I can work remotely. I'll follow up with the Seed guys first thing."

Martha smiles, squeezes her arm affectionately before she steps away and retreats back into her own office. The door clicks shut behind her as Eliza, finally, glances at her phone. It's a text from Alex: _Iowa can eat my ass._

She laughs a little to herself as she taps out a response. _So it turns out I may be joining you after all. M is adamant._

 _Oh shit!_ comes Alex's immediate response, and Eliza laughs, knowing he's dictating these into his phone via Siri, can only picture him shouting at his screen in a bullpen surrounded by campaign staff. _You coming to rescue us from our image problem?_

 _I make no promises_ , Eliza replies. _But I'll do my best not to exacerbate them._

Alex's response is a string of emojis, and she smiles to herself and sets it aside. Takes a sip of iced coffee and begins to scroll through the half-dozen emails that have pinged into her inbox while she and Martha were chatting. She's particular about maintaining Inbox Zero, but there's no reason for her to be CC'd on half of these — she ignores most of them. Only one gives her pause, and she blinks, confused, as she looks at the name. What business does Angelica have with her work email? Probably a mistake. Not worth exploring.

She opens it anyway, glancing at the list of recipients. Her parents, a few family friends, Peggy —  


 

> **_Subject: Breaking news!_ **
> 
> _Hello all!_
> 
> _I would've called you all individually, but thought an email blast might save time - we'll follow up one-on-one, of course! But as for now, save the date: March 15 marks my official full-time return to the United States._
> 
> _Yes. Full time. Angelica Schuyler's coming home, ladies and gentlemen._
> 
> _Details needn't be discussed just yet - I assure you, there's a fabulous story as to why. But as for now, start planning my homecoming parade. I can't wait to see you all._
> 
> _Love and fairest regards from foggiest London (for now!),_
> 
> _Angelica_

  
It takes a moment to process. Her hands hover over the keyboard, instinctually itching to shoot back a response as quickly as possible — time being of the essence, always — but she's coming up blank. _Overjoyed_ , a little voice in the back of her mind helpfully supplies, _you're overjoyed to have your sister back home_. And so she types that out obediently. Blinks. Looks over the couple of businesslike sentences she's written.

It looks contractual. It looks rote. She can't possibly send this letter.

So she deletes it. Sets a new appointment in her calendar: RESPOND TO ANGELICA (10:35AM). Pulls up the number for the guys from Seed. Takes a breath, gathers herself.

She will be overjoyed. After this call.


	2. Chapter 2

The meeting with the pair from Seed Fund runs long, and it's nearly three o'clock by the time that she and Martha leave the restaurant to catch their shuttle out of National. It occurs to Eliza that she has neglected to pack a bag, since she truly didn't know she was expected to tag along to Iowa, but then again, she and Martha can share clothes — the campaign has probably amassed an arsenal of a wardrobe for her. She vocalizes this out loud as they're driven through midday traffic, a quicker ride than she'd anticipated even with the issue of their lateness hanging over their heads.   
  
“Would you have wanted more advanced warning?” Martha asks, sounding a little disappointed. "I thought I might surprise you with it.”  
  
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Eliza says quickly. "You know. I just don't like to be caught off-guard. Old habits, or whatever." She is not a spontaneous person: it's something she's always known about herself. Even her youthful missteps and dalliances with the wild side were all carefully planned out to some degree, the pros and consequences dutifully weighed. "I don't mind. I'm happy to come along," she adds quickly, and Martha gives her knee a quick squeeze as the driver pulls up to the airport drop-off.  
  
They make it through security with ease— the Washingtons' position has many upsides, this being one of them— and their flight is just boarding when they make it to the gate. As Eliza finally slides into her seat, she feels a little more at ease, a little less frantic. Settles into her chair, adjusting her posture. First class on Delta is a little worse than first class everywhere else, but she's hardened, she can deal with it. And then it occurs to her: she neglected to respond to Angelica's email.  
  
She drums her fingers on her plush armrest impatiently as she thinks it over. It's a short flight, she can do it when they arrive. She turns to Martha, who is already engaged in a report on the MVC app. "I forgot to mention," Eliza says casually, working hard to keep her voice steady and even. "My sister is moving back to D.C."  
  
Martha looks up from the screen briefly, raising a brow in mild interest. "Angelica?" she asks. Inscrutable of face and tone.  
  
Eliza nods. "She sent out an email blast to inform the entire family, I don't know. I guess she's coming back in March."  
  
"I wonder what happened," Martha muses. "London seemed to suit her." Eliza coughs a little, and Martha chuckles, revising. "Her being in London seemed to suit you, too."  
  
"It's not that," Eliza says, her face flushing a little as she rushes to overexplain. "It's just that we get along better with more space between us. It's very natural."  
  
"You don't have to justify anything to me," Martha says gently. She looks as though she's got more to say, but holds back, returns to her iPad after a single sympathetic look, and Eliza churns with the desire to extrapolate. But she says nothing, just sips her spring water and turns her thoughts elsewhere.  
  
The thing is, she can't allow herself to dwell on this. What's done is done. If Angelica has already decided to move home, there's little Eliza can do but accept that it's happening.   
  
They taxi down the runway, and Martha sets her tablet aside, flipping up the window shade a few inches to let the golden afternoon sunshine fall across both of their seats. 

 

* * *

  
  
  
**three years before**  
  
It's a clear day in April when Eliza is dragged into a conference room she's got no business being in.  
  
Junior associates, as a rule, do not attend executive-level meetings. Most never even so much as make eye contact with the senior VPs, let alone anyone executive-tier. But through a series of snafus, each triggering yet another like a Rube Goldberg machine of missed calls and food poisoning, Eliza is summoned to accompany the VP of her department to a conference call detailing the firm's quarterly results. She's never felt so out of her league as she steps into the room, takes a seat at the long glass table beside James Wilkinson. Smooths down her dress as she sits, opens her laptop, folds her hands neatly on the table in front of her, admiring her short, neat manicure. But if anyone's questioning her presence here, no one vocalizes it; it occurs to her that the flashing Junior Associate designation only follows her around in her own head. Outside of the lobby, no one knows who she is or what she does. She thinks she can probably use this.  
  
The conference begins with Lawrence Washington opening up the call to the scores of financial analysts listening from across the nation. Eliza takes diligent notes — her presence here is only necessary because audio recording is strictly prohibited, and Wilkinson types with two fingers at a snail’s pace. Her nails click satisfyingly across the keyboard as she takes down as much of the verbatim conversation as she can manage, resorting to shorthand when she must. But she stops dead in her tracks when Martha Washington stands up from her seat, leans over the speakerphone and starts to talk.

Martha, she knows, is a controversial figure. Lawrence's sister-in-law, who had gotten her start as a corporate lawyer and moved to Wall Street in the late nineties, after a change in tax law had changed the way securities were taxed. Martha had married into the MVC family, quite literally; after her first husband passed in a freak helicopter crash, she became engaged to George Washington, a Virginia real estate heir and decorated Army vet, who was at the time contemplating a run for the House of Representatives. Some fifteen years later, she had climbed the internal ranks to have Lawrence install her as his new CFO, and two years after that, here sits Eliza, watching Martha Washington, slender and stunningly beautiful in an elegant black suit, reel off figures on figures with an air of genteel confidence.

Eliza swallows. She suddenly realizes she hasn't been keeping up, but the words coming out of Martha's mouth might as well be in Swedish; she's struck instead by her dark eyes and gleaming smile, the way her clipped, businesslike voice defaults to a slight Southern drawl at the ends of sentences. Her hair, which is styled in shoulder-skimming waves, a more romantic take on what Eliza has come to refer to in her head as the Business Bitch Bob. She's regal, and Eliza feels something tug inside her.

She manages to catch up after a few more moments of fevered indulgence. Martha is still reeling off figures, but Eliza focuses instead on the easy coherence with which she's speaking. The room was in a worrisome mood before the call had begun, but she can tell that Martha's performance is imbuing even the most stolid of the senior VPs and execs with confidence. As the callers listening in ask questions, Martha has answers for each of them, as if she’s been prepping for this for weeks. 

“There’s no question the last few days have seen unprecedented volatility, not only in our sector but also across the whole marketplace,” she says into the speakerphone. Eliza wets her lips. Martha Washington’s voice is calm and steady as she runs through the numbers for MVC’s business units, carefully elucidating the specifics of each. The presentation is stellar, and the room seems to hang on each word, impressed by Martha’s candor, her command of the facts, and her willingness to acknowledge outstanding problems. Even the period left open for questions seems like a softball game. Eliza navigates over to the MVC portal on her laptop and her eyes widen in surprise. Shares are spiking in real time, the longer Martha speaks. It’s —  
  
—inspirational, she realizes, it's inspirational. In that moment, she’s not sure if she wants to be Martha Washington or allow Martha to — do things to her. Possibly both. She’s uncertain. But as the meeting wraps up, she figures it’s now or never.  
  
Eliza tucks her laptop into her bag and stands as Wilkinson strides to join the crush of heady handshakes and buzzing grins at the head of the table. “Martha, my only regret is that you had to hang up the phone,” Lawrence is saying to her, “because as long as you kept them on the line, stock just kept going up—”  
  
There’s a chorus of laughs, on which Eliza joins in. It’s then that she catches Martha’s eye, and quickly glances away nervously, but it’s too late, the damage is done. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” says Martha, extending one hand, and Eliza discreetly wipes her suddenly-clammy palm on her skirt before shaking it. “Are you…?”  
  
The question is left appealingly open-ended, and she can feel the weight of Martha’s gaze land on her. “My name is Elizabeth Schuyler,” she supplies, laying equal weight to her own last name; it’s not a practice she particularly wishes to make into a habit, but if the Schuyler name often curries a better first impression than a mere introduction alone, it’s now or never. “I work in securities, under James Wilkinson—” An overstatement, perhaps. But it doesn’t seem to matter.  
  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Schuyler,” Martha says, her handshake growing a little firmer. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be related to Philip…?”  
  
“He’s my father,” Eliza says with a jerky little nod. “I just wanted to say, ah, congratulations. That was — awe-inspiring.”  
  
Martha smiles, both warm and self-satisfied as she finally drops Eliza’s hand. “You know, MVC has a great mentoring program for women in the company,” she says, lowering her voice as they take a step back from the buzz of the conference room. “Have you made use of it? I don’t recognize your face.”  
  
“Oh, I just don’t think I’m very recognizable,” Eliza says, self-effacing, as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. But Martha shakes her head.  
  
“I would recognize you,” she says, and then pauses. “I… have an eye for faces.”  
  
She feels herself flush under the scrutinizing eye of this, one of the most powerful women in finance. She bites down on her lip and then stops herself, carefully skims her tongue across her teeth to avoid presenting a lipstick-smeared smile as she opens her mouth again. “I’ll look into the mentoring program,” she says. “I’ve only been here four months.”  
  
“And you’re already here?” Martha cocks a brow. “That’s very impressive.”  
  
Eliza waffles, uncertain of whether to be honest about the circumstances that led her to this room. When in doubt, say nothing; that’s always been her MO. She lets her reservations play it as it lays, and shrugs with another little self-effacing smile. “I’m very dedicated,” she says simply, and glances over her shoulder as she sees Wilkinson start to stalk off without her. “I’m sorry. I have to go. It was a pleasure, Mrs. Washington.”  
  
“Martha,” she answers after a pause. “Please, call me Martha.”  
  
There’s no way she’s calling her Martha; there’s no way this isn’t a test. Instead, Eliza doesn’t call her anything; just nods and smiles and takes off after WIlkinson as he leaves the conference room.  
  
She’s at her desk three hours later, the rising stock prices a blur in front of her, when she spots the notification: a new appointment has been added to her calendar. With mild interest, she clicks over to her portal. Her eyes widen, her heart rate spikes like MVC stock.  
  
_MVCWomen Mentoring One-on-One_  
Tuesday, 5PM, Conference Room 6C  
Added by: Martha Washington  
  
With one tentative, shaking hand, she reaches into her desk drawer and removes a single dark chocolate espresso bean from the plastic Trader Joe’s box she keeps there. Bites into it cautiously, almost daintily.  
  
It splits in two between her teeth with a satisfying crack.  
  
She chews and swallows, but even a sip from the water bottle on the desk can’t slake the thirst that she feels rising inside her.

 

* * *

  
  
**present day**  
  
“Eliza!”  
  
She presents her cheek for the obligatory kiss Alex lays on her, her calculated smile warm but reserved for the hovering press. The rally was as much a success as they could have dreamed, and while George and Martha were whisked away to the hotel to get their beauty rest for the following day’s caucus, the staff was finally cut loose near eleven PM — and have thus congregated in a divey bar near the Ames Radisson.  
  
Alex, for his part, seems to be in better spirits than his texts earlier that day might have indicated; he’s got his green plaid tie hanging loose around his neck and a gin and tonic in his hand. He grins, takes another drink the bartender passes him and presses it into her hand. She sniffs it carefully. More gin. She’ll take it.  
  
“You seem like you’re enjoying yourself,” she comments as she takes a sip. “You’ve turned around your position on Iowa, then?”  
  
“Of course,” Alex says effusively, grinning. “Never would I dream of insulting the people of the great state of Iowa.” He leans in close, whispers in her ear. “Actually, it’s a shitshow. I’ll tell you all later. He just completely went off the rails today, he’s so bad at talking to normal people…”  
  
Eliza laughs, despite herself. “Martha’s better at it.”  
  
“Yeah, no kidding,” Alex huffs. “He had to eat a corn dog at a bowling alley and it’s like his brain short-circuited. He went in sideways like he was playing harmonica…”  
  
They’re laughing, warm and easy, and Alex touches her arm lightly on occasion, practiced and performative. The bar is buzzing with noise and packed with bodies in neatly tailored, D.C.-drab office garb, and it would be so easy for the two of them to sneak out, grab a cab back to the hotel and their actual significant others, but, Eliza realizes, this is part of the bargain, something she must play out. So they grab a table, and Alex brings with him a basket of fries the bartender slips him. (The girl’s sporting a Washington button on her vest. Small perks, perhaps. Eliza realizes she hasn’t eaten since the sushi restaurant at one.)  
  
“So,” Alex says, swirling a fry through a mound of ketchup. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Eliza frowns, looks away from her phone and slides it back in her jacket pocket. “Nothing. Do I seem as though I’m troubled?”  
  
“You sound like you’re, ah, ‘troubled,’” he says, air quotes around a curly fry. “What happened? Did you and the Duchess have a fight?”  
  
She shakes her head. “No. It’s a bit pretentious, calling her by her Secret Service call name…”  
  
“Washington totally got off on me calling him ‘Duke’ the other night,” Alex says as he cocks a mischievous brow. “Iowa, man. Does things to you.”  
  
“Don’t I know it,” Eliza mutters, and takes a careful bite of a fry. As a rule, she generally avoids greasy food and simple carbs; both at once seems like an immoderate indulgence. She’s already despairing of the salt-bloated face she’ll have to present to the hordes tomorrow, and checks herself as an uncharitable thought about the Iowan electorate skims the surface of her mind like an ugly stone. _Kindness, Eliza_ , she thinks, chewing and swallowing. These fries are tasteless anyway.  
  
Across the table, a look of understanding dawns on Alex’s face. “Shit, I always forget you did this before,” he says. “Didn’t your dad actually _win_ Iowa?”  
  
“Iowa and New York, and that was about it,” she agrees. “He stayed in the race until he was mathematically eliminated. It really made eighth grade _come alive_ for me.” She punctuates her deadpan tone with a roll of the eyes, then takes a long sip of her drink, straw at the side of her mouth.  
  
Alex’s face twists into a little smile. “Your sister must’ve loved that, though,” he says, and Eliza feels a twinge of discomfort thrum through her blood. He must notice. “What? What’s up? That’s the second time you’ve made that face.”  
  
She sighs. “It’s nothing. Just… weird memories. Nothing like being paraded in front of the entire country like a pageant contestant during the height of your awkward stage.”  
  
“I can’t imagine you ever having an awkward stage,” Alex laughs, and Eliza shakes her head.  
  
“Imagine it. In fact—” and here she calls up a picture on her phone, one Angelica had only recently posted on Facebook. “Believe it, rather.” It’s not a flattering family portrait; she’s all acne and braces, her lank hair parted — fashionably for the year — straight down the middle. Alex laughs a little, _awws_.  
  
“You weren’t that awkward,” he says, handing it back. “Not compared to me. There are no photos from my youth, I _burned_ those motherfuckers—”  
  
“The internet never forgets, Alexander,” she lectures him faux-seriously, and he laughs.  
  
“There’s a lot I’m hoping the internet forgets.”  
  
They stay for two more drinks, until the rest of the campaign staff begins to clear out, citing the early morning ahead of them. Eliza is pleasantly drunk as they climb into the back of a cab; she directs the driver politely to the hotel and bodily drags Alex the rest of the way inside as he reluctantly finishes a conversation with another staffer on the sidewalk. It’s well after midnight by the time she finally knocks on the door to Martha’s suite.  
  
She doesn’t expect her to still be up; it occurs to her that she might as well have just crashed with Alex. But the door clicks open a moment later, and Martha is smiling, knowing and calm, as she steps inside.  
  
“Sorry if I woke you, ma’am,” she says, gesturing down at Martha’s silk nightie, the wine-red shimmering in the low light of the room. CNBC is playing on mute on the flatscreen. “I didn’t expect to be out so late, Alex got carried away — you know how he is, he doesn’t possess the ability to stop talking once he’s started—”  
  
“It’s all right,” Martha says, sliding a hand down her arm and raising gooseflesh in its wake. Eliza shivers a little. She really is more tipsy than she expected, but it’s good, it’s warm and comfortable and she feels loose and pliable in the best way. Her lips land on Martha’s with a soft sigh and a giggle, and she’s pushier than usual tonight, taking the reins and pushing an agreeable Martha back to a seated position at the edge of the king-sized bed, sliding hands up her long, firm legs and pushing the nightie up above her waist. Sinks to sit back on her heels on the floor, pushes her hair out of her own eyes, and goes to work.  
  
“My good girl,” Martha murmurs, and Eliza sucks in a breath through her nose. Digs her fingers into dark, smooth thighs. Works harder.  
  
For the first time all day, she feels her rabbitlike heartbeat slow to a human’s pace. For the first time, she’s right where she wants to be.  
  
It’s good. It’s very good. For now, at least, it’s good.


	3. Chapter 3

Eliza has never been so hyperaware of the flawed system that is the United States electoral system as she is during the Iowa Caucus.  
  
Nothing about it makes sense, first of all. _Alice in Wonderland_ was her favorite book as a child, for reasons in the multiple. The Disney movie, for starters, weird and trippy with bright-colored animation, and the whole concept of the reserved but imaginative young girl being whisked away to a surreal, fantastic world where nothing quite made sense. The whimsy. Eliza has never quite been one for fantasy, but she does love a healthy dose of whimsy. But something that never quite clicked for her until she was thirteen was the strange scene near the beginning, in which a group of anthropomorphic birds decide that they must elect a new leader and commence a “caucus race," in which everyone runs around willy-nilly until one arbitrarily decides to stop.  
  
Trying to comprehend the Iowa caucus at thirteen made about as much sense then as it does now, at twenty-eight. Martha slips out of bed bright and early, to be trussed up by the campaign makeup team in George’s suite, but she leaves behind a simple blue wrap dress hanging from the closet door, one that luckily doesn’t clash with the black heels she’d worn the day before. No underwear. That seems like a suggestion; perhaps even an expectation. She’ll go without. She showers, blows out her hair as ably as she can, and puts on the bra she’d left on the floor last night before slipping into the dress and knotting it carefully around her waist. Links her delicate gold necklace back around her neck, sighs at herself in the mirror. It's good enough.  
  
The Washington campaign, Alex had explained the night before, had focused its pre-caucus campaigning in the larger cities: Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux City. John Rutledge had spent more time campaigning in smaller towns, and his homey, just-folks vibe was playing well there, but Washington struck a balance between the Southern-fried, ex-military grit that hit with the middle class and the genteel, educated, even keel of a career politician from old money.Alex had looked exhausted the night before, but proud, as well; he’d rambled at length about strategy of his own creation. And Eliza is proud of him. She truly is. Over the past couple years, she’s watched him rise from staff assistant to policy director and now campaign strategist. The bags under his eyes have only become more pronounced for it, but he’s thriving, seems to live mostly on the right side of hypomania these days. She’s proud of him. She’s happy. It’s just —  
  
No, she decides as she slips her feet into her heels and stands up from the bed; she’s not going to dwell on this, today, either. Alex knows as well as she does what the consequences of success might be. He’s in the same position as she is. The idea that winning this election might mean losing the relationships they both hold most sacred — she refuses to think about it. Too early to tell. Her father won Iowa, after all.  
  
Her phone dings with an arriving email, and she grabs for it. A distraction. Any distraction.  
  
  
  
  
She slips into the campaign suite with two cups of coffee in her hands, handing one to Martha. “Ma’am,” she mutters as she takes a seat next to where a hairdresser is fussing with her bob. “I answered some of your emails, and I changed your out-of-office email signature to one with a link that redirects to the campaign donation page. Anything else?”  
  
Martha smiles, takes a sip of the americano Eliza’s just handed her. “Have you followed up with the gentlemen from Seed?”  
  
“I told them we’d give it until the end of the week,” she shrugs. “I don’t think their plan is viable and we’re not really in a position to be throwing money around at anyone who asks for it.”  
  
She sees Martha’s face falter and fears for a moment that she's overstepped her position, but it's only for a moment. Martha composes herself, nods thoughtfully. "That's fair," she says to Eliza. “I’ll take it under consideration. Take it to the guys in VC.”  
  
“Great.” Eliza takes a sip of her coffee and allows the hairdresser to begin fussing with her own hair. “Wait. I’m not going to be on camera at all today, am I?”  
  
“You should look presentable, dear,” Martha says, absentminded and already lost in an email on her own phone. But something unpleasant twists inside Eliza, something she doesn’t like, and she ducks away from the hairdresser’s hands.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes politely. “I just remembered, I’ve got an important phone call to take — you’ll excuse me.”  
  
She can see Martha watching her from the corner of her eye, and cringes a little. She knows this doesn't look good. But she can’t bear being treated like an object. She hates the idea of being paraded around in front of cameras. She chose this life for a reason, and she has no desire to live more publicly than she already does. _And besides_ , she thinks, _there’s no reason for me to be hanging off Alex’s arm today anyway. He’s too busy to play doting couple. We wouldn't want to overdo it._  
  
As Eliza steps out into the hall, her phone, perhaps prophetically, begins to vibrate in her hand. She's tempted to ignore the call, take a moment just to get her bearings and put on a happier face, a more acceptable countenance, but then she sees the caller name flash across the screen. Peggy. She can’t rightly ignore this.  
  
“Hey, Pegs.”  
  
“So you got the email?” Eliza leans against the wall of the hotel hallway, crosses her arms. She can hear Peggy huffing and puffing, the distinctive rhythmic grind of a treadmill groaning in the background. “Are you kidding me? What was that?”  
  
“I’m sure she didn’t mean any offense,” Eliza says automatically, her mind racing. The defense is automatic, yes, but it strikes a chord of hope in her; perhaps she's not the only one in the family less than impressed with Angelica's grand declarations.  
  
She hears Peggy snort on the other end of the line. “I’m sure she didn’t,” she says. “She never does. But that doesn’t mean…”  
  
“Be nice, Peggy,” Eliza reminds her, and Peggy groans.  
  
“So are you coming to her homecoming party?”  
  
“There’s a homecoming party?” Eliza furrows her brow, shakes her head even though she knows Peggy can’t actually see her. “No. I haven’t heard anything about this. Who’s throwing it?”  
  
“I am,” Peggy says dryly.  
  
Eliza laughs out loud at this. “Let me guess: she ‘enthusiastically suggested’ that someone throw her a homecoming party—”  
  
“—and then passive-aggressively badgered me about it until I agreed to do it, yeah.” She hears Peggy turn off the treadmill, the loud thumping of her run slowing down in time. Thank goodness, it’s a lot easier to make her words out now. “It’s gonna be at that steakhouse she really likes. March 20th. We’re having letterpress invitations made, it’s a whole thing.”  
  
“Good god,” says Eliza, for lack of anything else to say.  
  
“Yeah,” says Peggy. “So, okay, here’s what’s bugging me. She wouldn’t tell me why she’s moving back, like, at all? Not at all. I must have asked her like, twenty times in one conversation. I dunno. Daddy doesn’t know either, and if she won’t tell him…”  
  
“She wouldn’t tell anyone,” Eliza finishes, nodding to herself. “That’s interesting. It’s…” And here she falls silent. “Look," she adds into the phone after a long pause. She's suddenly hyperaware of her surroundings, of who might be listening in. Instinct kicks her right in the stomach, and she reels, a little nauseous, and conserves her language. "Maybe we should just let her do her thing, you know? She's our sister. She wants the best for us."  
  
She can practically hear Peggy rolling her eyes through the phone at this, but all she says in response is, "Fine. Anyway, March 20th at Kissinger's Tavern. Mark your calendar."  
  
"Penciling it is as I speak," says Eliza, and hangs up. She pauses as she leans back against the wall a little more heavily, folding her arms even tighter across her chest. She's got her hand clenched so tightly around her phone that it feels like a palsy, or like a muscle spasm she couldn't stop if she tried. She shakes her head, shakes it off. This isn't any better. She isn't feeling any better. This isn't right. Yoga breathing.  
  
She thinks about Martha, thinks about her steady gaze and mountains of expectations, and she steels herself as she walks back into the hotel suite, no less composed than she was when she left.  
  
  
  
  
If it's possible that Iowa hasn't changed at all in the sixteen years since she was last here, it must be true. The day feels strangely like a road trip through her junior high self's worst memory, sequestered in a hotel in Ames as the numbers slowly begin to roll in.  
  
Washington is tense. He conceals it well, he always does, but Eliza can see the way he carries it in his neck and shoulders, the stiffness that relents only slightly when Alex on occasion brushes the small of his back. They've got the whole conference room to themselves, and the ballroom for later, and the NBC affiliate with their cameras ready to roll as soon as the calls start coming in from each precinct reporting.  
  
"We chose Ames because we thought it really split the difference," Alex says as he sidles up next to Eliza, a can of Red Bull in one hand and an iPad in the other. "It's not technically a small town, but it's got that small town vibe. Definition of moderate, much like us."  
  
"Smart," Eliza remarks. She taps at his can with one finger. "That stuff's gonna kill you, by the way."  
  
"It takes a lot to put me down when I'm flying like this," Alex grins. "The Duchess wanted to see you, by the way."  
  
"Don't call her that," says Eliza with a slight flush. "Where is she?"  
  
"Coat room. She seems stressed." Alex takes a long swig of his (frankly disgusting) energy drink, and Eliza sighs. He doesn't even have the good sense to drink the sugar-free variety. If the caffeine content doesn't kill him, the high fructose corn syrup will.  She can feel him watching her go as she finds the coat check outside the hotel ballroom and steps inside.  
  
Martha is cloistered inside, a matcha protein bar at her lips. She starts to take another bite, but draws it back as she spots Eliza. "Oh," she says simply. "Good. Did you call the guys from Seed yet?"  
  
"I emailed them this morning," Eliza frowns. "Are you all right, ma'am?"  
  
"Of course. I'm just fine, dear," Martha responds, tosses the protein bar aside and smooths her hair with both palms. "Why do you ask?"  
  
Eliza gestures around. "You're, ah. In a coat check."  
  
"I just wanted some privacy," she says, sounding a little distracted. Her gaze flits off, and Eliza frowns, furrows her brow. "Did you see Beth Rutledge with that homeless veteran in Sioux City? Helping him into his wheelchair and all?"  
  
"I didn't," says Eliza cautiously. She's looking closer now, noticing the tension in Martha's shoulders, the way they're held high and tight in her form-fitting white dress. "Ma'am, do you want to—“  
  
"You know, I knew Rutledge would have to start fighting for the veteran vote at some point, but I didn't think it would happen this early," Martha explodes. As much as Martha ever explodes, really. It's not an eruption so much as a quick snap, a crackling fuse, finally exploding with a burst of sparks and then silent darkness. "But sending Beth in there — if she tries to make this her cause, I swear to God—”  
  
“I doubt that’ll happen, ma’am,” Eliza says quickly, and Martha shakes her head.  
  
“You know, nobody in this race has done more for veterans than George,” she snaps. “And me, for God’s sake. You know, I married one, hell of a lot more than Beth Rutledge—”  
  
“I know that, ma’am.” Eliza keeps her voice as gentle and steady as possible, pressing her fingers into her own upper arms where they’re folded. This is unusual. Martha’s never like this; she’s never anything but the picture of control. She’s never heard her voice go high and tight like this. This is not good, Eliza thinks, and she reaches out, places one hand gently on Martha’s shoulder. “Have you eaten yet? You should eat.”  
  
She watches Martha glance down into the wastebasket where she’d tossed the protein bar. “I’m not particularly hungry,” she says. Her entire body feels tenser than Washington’s under Eliza’s warm palm, but Eliza squeezes, tentatively, and she feels a hint of relaxation. A start.  
  
“C’mon,” she says gently. “We’re going to… let’s go out and talk to the guys.”  
  
There’s a beat, a long pause, and Martha breathes in sharply through her nose, nods more to herself than to Eliza. It’s as if she can see Martha pulling herself back together, filing off whatever rough edges might have popped off. She tucks the last few threads back inside her cuffs and actually, physically, smooths out the skirt of her dress, and nods again. “My good girl,” she says, offering a squeeze to Eliza’s outstretched hand.  
  
Eliza squeezes back.  
  
  
  
They end out the day with 22 delegates. 22 delegates to Rutledge’s 13 and Knox’s 6. "Onwards," Washington says, lifting a glass in the hotel ballroom, "and upward to New Hampshire."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s frigid when they arrive in New Hampshire, cold winds gusting across the rock-hard plains of the Granite State and shaking the barren trees with them. Eliza starts shivering a little as soon as they step off the plane. She should have packed more thoroughly.

It’s frigid when they arrive in New Hampshire, cold winds gusting across the rock-hard plains of the Granite State and shaking the barren trees with them. Eliza starts shivering a little as soon as they step off the plane. She should have packed more thoroughly.  
  
“Do you want a fleece?” asks a campaign aide, who sees her teeth chattering, and Eliza has to think twice before she answers.  
  
“I’m good,” she chirps. “It’s all fine. I’m from upstate New York, I can handle a little wind.” As if she’d be caught dead in performance fleece, really. But the wind whips through her Barbour coat like it's nothing, and it makes her shake a little too hard for her liking. It’s always been warm enough for her in the District.  
  
The first stop, in Nashua, is a whirl of motion and activity — feigned handshakes, gritted teeth, too-wide smiles that turn the slightest bit gummy at the end. It never ceases to amaze her how natural George is at all this. The dog and pony show, the charade. He takes to it like a superhero; Eliza has spent enough of her life around politicians to know a natural when she sees one.  
  
It’s funny, she thinks, how hard the campaign staff feels they have to work for a candidate who seems to have an effortless grip on the art of campaigning. The thing is, George -- and she sees this objectively, having no real attachment to the man himself -- is a man of the people in the most traditional fashion. Alex, perhaps, not so much. She catches him mid-meltdown in the corridor of the Nashua Marriott, snarling into the speaker of his iPhone: “Listen to me, you cocksucker, I need to know who wrote that piece so that I can have their—"  
  
“Alex,” she says sharply, and Alex looks up, head whipping around. He holds up a hand: one minute. She shakes her head and adds, “The General. He wants you.”  
  
“Two hours to give me a name,” he snaps into the phone, and ends the all. “Shit. I hate New Hampshire. I don't know who decided this bitch-ass hick state should be responsible for this much of the early campaign time, but I’m gonna have their dick flayed, too.”  
  
“Charm city,” Eliza says, rolling her eyes. “George was looking for you. And Catherine said something about talking points for the town hall, I think she has updates.”  
  
“Remind me what you’re doing here again?” he says with furrowed brow, and Eliza can only laugh, lifting her arms in a stymied shrug.  
  
“Honestly," she says, “your guess is good as mine.”  
  
Mostly, she follows. She trails Martha efficiently, one eye glued to her work email and the other to the MVC app, reporting each minor hitch in the dow as dutifully and solemnly as she can. Sometimes it feels more like brain surgery than business, more like rocket science than IPOs, and she feels so in over her head. Not like she’s bringing that up in their morning meetings. Not like she’s raising her own career-timeline doubts during the weekly executive scrums, confessing her lack of a convincing five year plan within the realm of venture capital. But then again, she never intended to end up here, either.

  
  
  
**three years earlier**  
  
The meeting in her calendar was scheduled for 5PM. She arrives at 4:55, a little disoriented but mostly calm. She runs her tongue over her teeth, counts the pages in her portfolio time after time. The evenness of the number, a perfect 22 — her luckiest number, for reasons she’s never been able to quantify aside from two being her favorite numeral and two of them being so satisfying to look at and write out in her neat, curving script. She flips through the pages again and again, looking them over carefully; this is her masterwork. Two bachelor’s degrees from Vassar: marketing and art history. One for business, one for pleasure; a neat MBA from Wharton to tie a nice satin bow on the whole good-smart-girl package. She’d been happy to take the plunge into the family business at first, and accepted the first job she was offered, quite literally within the family business: at Angelica’s NGO.  
  
Nine months of that had been quite enough. MVC matched her salary on a first negotiation and offered more room for advancement, more vacation time, and, most importantly, the chance to be something more than “Angie’s sister.” All of which she had outlined quite politely in her letter of resignation, written in flowing blue fountain ink on her fine engraved stationery, which had been a graduation gift from Angelica herself upon her commencement from Wharton.  
  
She rehearses the story in her head as she paces outside the conference room. Her phone dings at five o’clock on the dot, and it’s then that she knocks, twice, rapidly, on the frosted glass door.  
  
“Ms. Schuyler,” says Martha with a smile as she slides it open. Holds out a hand. “Thank you so much for coming by. I know it was last minute.”  
  
“Not a problem at all,” Eliza says as she accepts the handshake. It’s firm, assured. Practiced. She took a workshop at Vassar but can’t match it on her first grip, but Martha says nothing, barely seems to notice. “Thank you for scheduling this. I hadn’t really — the mentoring program seemed to have slipped past my notice.”  
  
Martha smiles as she slides out a chair for Eliza, who takes a seat gracefully, smoothing her skirt beneath her as she does. “Understandable, dear,” she says warmly. “It doesn’t come up often enough in the orientation. I’ve always supposed it has to do with the higher concentration of male associates coming in — but you, I see, were in an orientation class of twenty, with eleven women —”  
  
Eliza quirks a brow. “You pulled my file?”  
  
“Of course. I did my research.”  
  
“I’m very flattered. I don’t often feel as though my reputation stands out among my peers,” she says, choosing her words carefully enough — but still she flushes over as she hears that come out. Too heavy on the self-pity, not nearly assured enough. She quickly amends it. “That isn’t to say I don’t have confidence in my work. But I feel as though perhaps I don’t ask for enough credit for what I do accomplish? At Vassar, I—”  
  
“I saw you were a Vassar girl,” Martha says with a sly smile. “I did my undergrad at Smith. For the change in scenery. Howard for my MBA.”  
  
“My sister went to Howard,” Eliza nods. “And I suppose you noticed, but I did my MBA at Wharton.”  
  
“How did you like it there?” Martha’s tone is light, conversational, hardly the formal interview Eliza had predicted based on her performance on the morning’s conference call. She has to think her answer over carefully before she answers.  
  
“I learned a lot,” she says, “though I found the focus on analytics and statistics and raw data as a means of measuring success a bit stifling. I think there’s something to be said for having a balance between the right brain and the left. I’ve always had a passion for fine art, and I think that has given me a measure of perspective. I seek balance in all things. Balance and —”  
  
“And?” Martha’s leaning forward, hands folded loosely on the table. She looks interested — genuinely interested, no businesslike veneer to her body language.  
  
“Balance and perfection,” Eliza finishes, voice going a bit breathy at the end. The way Martha’s looking at her — she feels as though she’s been kicked in the stomach. Pummeled sideways, in a good way.  
  
Martha smiles with closed lips, and she gestures for Eliza’s portfolio. “Tell me more about your creative pursuits.”  
  
“Well, I appreciate art more than I create it,” she says, sliding the heavy leather dossier across the table. “I paint, of course, and take photographs, but I don’t have talent so much as skill. Skills can be developed with diligence, that’s the difference. I’ve worked hard, but I’ll never be Georgia O’Keeffe or Klimt.”  
  
“You like the modernists?” Martha’s paging through her C.V., looking mildly interested.  
  
“Love the modernists,” Eliza confirms. “It’s funny. Everyone always took me for someone who would favor the impressionists, and I do, of course, everyone does, Van Gogh and Renoir and Mary Cassatt, especially, but I love the starkness of some of the modernists. The seediness to Balthus. The sensuality of O’Keeffe, even her skulls and skies are so suggestive.”  
  
Martha smiles with her whole face, eyes lighting up, as she closes the dossier. “I’ve got an O’Keeffe back at my own home. My mother-in-law bought it on impulse decades ago and handed it off to my husband. I don’t know as much about art myself, personally, but I've always enjoyed that painting.”  
  
“Do you know what it’s called?” Eliza asks. Her interest is getting the better of her now, and Martha hums, clicks her tongue as she mulls it over.  
  
“ _Red Poppy,_ I believe,” she says. “It’s certainly red, and I suppose in the right light, it could pass for a poppy.” She breaks off into a chuckle, which Eliza returns, uncrossing and recrossing her legs beneath the table. “So what is your relationship to the art world now? I see that you previously worked for an NGO, but I don’t see any professional engagement with the creative arts past a Met internship during college.”  
  
“That was more or less the end of it,” Eliza shrugs. “I didn’t — two roads diverged, as they say, and I took the road that would provide a more stable existence in this economy. Art isn’t exactly the most recession-proof business.”  
  
“So it isn’t.” Martha closes the dossier and slides it back across the table to Eliza, who accepts it haltingly. “I’m wondering, though. Are you happy working under Wilkinson?”  
  
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I’ve only been here a couple months, and I’ve barely interacted with Wilkinson before today. The whole meeting, you know, that was a fluke, I wasn’t supposed to be there.”  
  
Martha shrugs. “I think, on some cosmic level, that you were,” she says. “Here’s what I see. I see a very gifted young woman hesitant to go after what she wants and ask for what she deserves. For example, you are very underpaid in your current position. I know junior VPs with fewer academic qualifications. But what they all have in common is ambition, and a willingness to — pardon my language, but — _bullshit_ until they get where they want to be. That was the impetus behind creating MVCWomen. Seeing more qualified young women passed over again and again for jobs in which they’re perfectly capable of succeeding really began to get to me. I think you’re a perfect example, Ms. Schuyler.”  
  
“Please,” Eliza starts to beg off, but Martha shakes her head.  
  
“I’d like to continue meeting with you,” she says. “I think there may be an ideal position for your particular skill set opening up within the next few months, and I’d like to see you put your name in for it.” She smiles again, and it’s so warm, so electric, that Eliza can’t tear her eyes away. “Ms. Schuyler.”  
  
“Eliza,” she says without thinking, and Martha laughs a little.  
  
“Eliza Schuyler,” she amends. “Formally speaking, down on one metaphorical businesslike knee, hon — will you be my mentee?”  
  
_I am amazed and know not what to say_. Only words that flash through her mind in the moment. Shakespeare — always appropriate, she supposes, though —  
  
Instead, impulsively, she holds out a hand to shake and takes a deep breath, shoulders hitching upward by three inches as their fingers touch. “Of course, Ms. Washington,” she says, and she doesn’t know whether it’s just her imagination, or the fact that she hasn’t been on a date in six months, or both, but she could swear Martha’s eyes linger a little longer than appropriate on her lips as she says it.  
  
She hopes. God, she hopes.

  
  
  
**present day**  
  
“Ma’am,” she murmurs as she steps into the hotel room. “I think we're ready to talk to the Nashua Gazette.”  
  
Martha nods as she glances up from her own tablet, a makeup artist still putting the finishing touches on her carefully-coiffed bob. “This is just another puff piece, right, hon?” She brushes away the hovering makeup girl. “This looks fine, don’t worry about it,” she says. “I’d like the room for a moment.”  
  
The second they’re alone, Eliza throws herself down on the bed, exhausted. She falls onto her back, letting her hair puddle around her on the neat hotel bedclothes. “Talking points from Kitty,” she says, eyes closed, speaking from memory. “Veteran affairs are very near to your heart. When George was on the defense committee, you supported his efforts to power through as much legislation to empower vets as possible. MVC makes hefty annual donations to Swords to Plowshares, and not only do you support and enable veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces to live healthy and autonomous lives after their service, you even went so far as to marry one. Which is more than Beth Rutledge can say.”  
  
“Nice one,” Martha laughs lightly, and Eliza cracks open her eyes as she smirks in response.  
  
“I was just quoting you.”  
  
“Don’t think I didn’t catch that.”  
  
“God, I can't wait to get out of this godforsaken state,” Eliza groans as she sits up. “It’s too cold here. I can’t imagine how you and George must be handling it. I’m miserable, and I’m from upstate—”  
  
“Did you get the last email from the Seed Fund people?” Martha asks idly, scrolling through her email again. “Didn't we agree we were going to fund them?”  
  
Eliza shrugs. “That was before Iowa. I thought we decided it was too risky.”  
  
“Yes. Well. Speaking of risk.” Martha sets aside her tablet, spins her chair to face Eliza fully on the bed. “And speaking of MVC. I think — and I want you to hear me out before you say anything, though I do want your opinion — I’m thinking of taking a leave of absence from MVC throughout the rest of the campaign.”  
  
She takes a breath. “Ma’am, I…” But she trails off as she sees Martha shaking her head. Right. Time to hear her out. Time to pretend this news doesn't secretly thrill her from all the way down to her core. “Go on.”  
  
Martha’s looking at her funny, a little bit sideways. “I really thought you’d have more to say there.”  
  
“I’m hearing you out.”  
  
“But not arguing?”  
  
Eliza shrugs. She thinks, quickly, of all the logical reasons why _not_ to argue. Compiles an instantaneous list, but none of them seem quite right, none of them go so far as to take into account the real reason she’s so okay with this. “I’ve missed you, ma’am. The campaign and working full-time. It’s a lot. I don’t think you — we — can handle both and then… us. If that makes sense.”  
  
“Of course, this doesn't mean you’ll be moving on,” Martha says quickly. “Kitty is fine at her job, but I would love you to take on an administrative role within the campaign itself. George and I talked it over.” ( _She went to George first_ , Eliza thinks with a twinge of slight jealousy, _after two and a half years she still goes to George first_ — but it’s not exactly fair, she reminds herself; Martha and George are as much business partners as anyone else, this is a business arrangement.) “Don't think I haven’t noticed how stressed you are, sweetheart. One job is more than enough.”  
  
Eliza licks her lips. “That means so much.”  
  
Martha rises from her chair, leans down to kiss her softly on the lips where she's sitting up on her elbows on the bed. Her lipstick doesn’t smear; doesn’t even so much as leave a trace on Eliza's lips; she still dabs at them self-consciously with the back of her hand, ever aware of the cameras lurking around each corner. “We’ll talk after this thing with the Gazette,” she says decisively. “I’m going to announce my leave of absence to the paper. It’ll look good. _Wifely_.” Rolls her eyes on the last line.  
  
“Wifely,” Eliza snorts. “Yes. I — I’m going to see what they’ve got prepped for the debate, outfit-wise. I just…”  
  
Martha pauses at the door, where she’s stepping into her pristine winter-white Louboutins. “Mm?”  
  
“Don’t you think it’s all a bit demeaning?” She can’t help asking the question, the one that’s been tugging at her since the notion of George running for the nomination ever came into question. “I know it’s not — it’s all an image. I’m more than aware of that. I just, y’know. It’s kind of…”  
  
She trails off. She doesn’t have to answer the question. Martha nods, intuitively, and crosses back to kiss her again, a little more deep and insistent this time. Warm and real and grounding, but over much too soon.  
  
“Of course it is,” Martha says decisively. “But that’s the bargain we made, remember?”  
  
Eliza watches her go. There’s something about her eerie coolness, the calm rolling off her in waves, that doesn’t sit quite right — the Martha she knows is relaxed, but in control; this one is just slightly _off._ Something is different.  
  
But that’s the bargain. And her phone dings again with another arriving email, and she swallows and steadies herself as she reaches for her phone to read it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND WE'RE BACK, FOLKS.
> 
> Updates may be less frequent. We'll see. But I didn't want to leave this story unfinished. There are so many sides of Eliza that need to be explored, and this is one of them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The debate is being held at UNH Manchester. George and Alex have been in such deep debate prep for the past few days that Eliza has seen almost nothing of either of them; Alex occasionally surfaces from the campaign’s war room to send an unlucky intern on a snipe hunt for some snack food impossible to find in whatever small town they’ve been campaigning in. Eliza catches him the night before the debate, grabs him by the strap of his backpack and mutters, “I’m worried.”

The debate is being held at UNH Manchester. George and Alex have been in such deep debate prep for the past few days that Eliza has seen almost nothing of either of them; Alex occasionally surfaces from the campaign’s war room to send an unlucky intern on a snipe hunt for some snack food impossible to find in whatever small town they’ve been campaigning in. Eliza catches him the night before the debate, grabs him by the strap of his backpack and mutters, “I’m worried.”  
  
“About what?” comes his answer, and his breath reeks of salt and coffee, enough that she takes a bracing step backward. She’s never seen him look so poorly, skin sallow and the bags beneath his eyes more pronounced than ever. But that’s business as usual. She’s getting a stress pimple in her own eyebrow, and while she thanks it for staying discreet, it’s also extremely painful.  
  
“About Martha,” she says, and Alex shakes his head.  
  
“Don’t be,” he says. “She can handle herself. I think out of all of us, she’s the one who has most proven that. George, on the other hand—” He rolls his eyes, and Eliza stifles a laugh despite herself.  
  
“What?”  
  
Alex waves a hand vaguely through the air. “He’s not himself.”  
  
“Neither is Martha,” Eliza says plaintively. “They’re both — I don’t know. I think it’s the campaign. Getting used to the fishbowl. It’s not good for anyone’s mental health.”  
  
“I wouldn’t know much about that,” Alex mutters darkly, and Eliza pretends he’s said nothing, just stares at his forehead until he adds, “I’ll see if we can get some alone time. After Tuesday, I mean.”  
  
“It’s Thursday now —”  
  
“Home stretch, Betty. Sleep when you’re dead. Speaking of.” Alex brandishes his key card and dips it into his hotel door with a flourish. “I’ll see you in four hours.”  
  
“Mm.” She doesn’t bother to dignify his brush-off with actual words, just watches him disappear into his dark hotel room before she opens the door to her own suite.   
  
Her room is dark, stark, entirely unappealing. The sheets must be 200 thread count at most. She’s nearly tempted to send another intern to the Wal-Mart in Manchester for something that doesn’t feel like sandpaper, but decides against it; it would be a field day for Rutledge’s camp to find out that Martha Washington’s right-hand woman can’t handle roughing it like a Real American for a few days.   
  
She flips on the TV as she sits down on the bed. Fox News pops up immediately. It’s more coverage of the Patrick Henry rally in Nashua, the cheering hordes. It makes her uncomfortable. It makes her more than uncomfortable to think about their campaign facing this man in the general. Eliza fumbles for the remote and switches to MSNBC, then turns it off altogether.  
  
The room’s too empty. She hangs up her blazer, unbuttons her blouse and folds it neatly before setting it aside on the dresser. Catches a glimpse of herself from the waist up in the mirror and carefully appraises her body — there’s no use wearing a nice bra when no one will see it, but she does it anyway. She thinks about Martha and George in their own suite, the two requisite beds there; they’ve got their whole charming backstory for the request (“He snores!” “She kicks!”) but it still doesn’t make the little kick of jealousy in Eliza’s stomach any less sharp when she thinks about it. With a put-upon little groan, she leans over the side of the bed and fishes through her carry-on luggage until she finds her vibrator. Small, silver, powerful. Quiet. She yanks off her trousers and underwear in a single go and burrows beneath the blankets in the chilly room, and switches it on.  
  
Martha, unwrapping the ties on Eliza’s favorite blue DVF. Martha, guiding her in front of the window in this room, kissing her neck, trailing fingers over her breasts and pinching her nipples. Clamps? There should be clamps in this fantasy, she decides, rolling one of her own nipples between her thumb and forefinger as she traces the vibe around the outside of her sex. Pinches the other one a bit harder and hisses. Martha, bending her forward, letting her brace her hands on the windowsill and open her legs — spreading her open, her cunt throbbing with the sheer want of it. _Maybe I should bring you onstage like this at the rally_ , Martha says, _let everyone see how obedient you are, obedient and perfect for me_. Drives two fingers into herself, holding the the vibrator steady. Thinks about Martha’s tongue on her clit, three fingers in her cunt, thumb rubbing teasingly across her asshole, pressing inside, both hands engaged at once — playing her like an instrument.   
  
She comes once, silently, thinking about Martha’s hands — and again, a more intense burst just as the first has faded, and she has to bite back Martha’s name as she rides it out —  
  
The clattering sound of the vibe hitting the floor barely registers as she sinks down into the pillows.  


* * *

  
The debate itself is a shitshow. She stands in the bullpen with Martha and the rest of the Washington team, watching as the entire spectacle unfolds on a massive flat-screen above them. It starts when George accidentally walks onstage as Rutledge’s name is called — “They told him he was going on first, this is fucking sabotage,” Alex snarls — and the hits just keep coming. “I believe that all people — all women, but also all men — have the right to choose a choice that is theirs to choose,” mumbles a sweaty Knox, apparently blindsided by Anna Zenger’s obvious softball question about crisis pregnancy centers in Texas. Caught onstage without a handkerchief, he dabs wearily at his forehead with his jacket sleeve; Eliza grits her teeth, looking away in secondhand embarrassment. She always liked Knox.  
  
Rutledge does one better, managing to fumble over a softball question about the carbon tax. Washington is the only one who manages to come out of the whole affair looking halfway presidential, which shouldn’t be surprising — but just when they think they’re out of the woods, Zenger taps her papers on the moderator desk and clears her throat.  
  
“The last question of the night goes to Senator Washington,” she says, and George smiles, serene and calm. “Senator, so far you’ve taken a harder stance on Wall Street than your fellow candidates, and your proposed economic plan would increase regulation on banks even beyond the regulations established by the Adams-Molineux Act. However, given your family’s close ties to Wall Street, including your wife’s role as CFO of Mount Vernon Capital, some have called into question how you plan to enforce this regulation. Would you care to respond?”  
  
George frowns, the wheels clearly turning in his head. Eliza takes a cautious little breath as she glances sidelong at Martha, who is staring at the monitor, arms folded, indignant. “Anna, I have always striven to keep my private life separate from my profession,” he says, and in the greenroom, Eliza sees Alex let out a choking little snort even as his eyes remain glued to the screen. “But that being said, I believe — as I have always believed — that it is tantamount for the government and the financial industry to work in cooperation to benefit the American people. The regulatory relationship between the government and the banks cannot be built on a foundation of enmity. If elected, I see my relationship with the financial sector playing out as more of a—” and here is where he seems to run out of words, and starts to stutter off, blinking rapidly as he does. “—more of an, ah, a father figure relationship. The past couple of decades, you know, the banks haven’t had someone there to, ah, to discipline them.”  
  
“Oh my God,” Alex says blankly, and Eliza turns to him, uncertain of whether to laugh or scream — this can’t be heading anywhere good —  
  
“And what I think I can do,” George continues, “is, ah, be that disciplinary figure. Lay down rules, and be there to correct the banks when they step out of line. But that father figure cannot be a distant one. Wall Street needs discipline, but Adams-Molineux only provided half of that. I’m going to be the, ah. The father figure. Thank you, Anna, for that question.”  
  
The peanut gallery explodes as George cedes the floor. Alex is clutching at his hair with both hands, horrified. Kitty Livingston fumbles for her phone: “Twitter is all over this already,” she says, “‘Did Washington just say he wants to be America’s daddy dom,’ ‘Fifty shades of George Washington,’ ‘Washington is going to spank Wall Street until it forgives one point two trillion dollars of student loan debt’—oh, my God…”  
  
Eliza’s already grappling with her own phone, pulling up Twitter. “This is so bad,” she mutters, tongue between her teeth, but at the same time, the urge to giggle keeps bubbling up inside her—“At least he didn’t say he wanted to see bankers led off in handcuffs,” she adds to Alex, who still, uncharacteristically, seems incapable of forming words.  
  
“This is going to be a meme for at least the next two days,” Kitty groans. “There are already pictures popping up — oh, fuck, they found the one of him with a riding crop at the Kentucky Derby—”  
  
Martha looks surprisingly calm, arms folded, a serene look on her face as the rest of the staff proceeds to lose its shit. Eliza touches her arm softly, and leans in to her ear. “I think,” Eliza whispers, “that we should have some kind of statement about your leave of absence from MVC ready. Just piggybacking off this.”  
  
Martha nods thoughtfully, leans a little closer to Eliza’s ear, lips almost brushing her hair. “Something that shuts down the speculation about my and George’s sex life, preferably.”  
  
“Naturally.” Eliza smiles. Can’t hold back a nervous little giggle, although she still doesn’t know why she finds this so funny as everyone else around her is spinning straight into damage-control mode. “I mean, it could’ve been worse, really.”  


* * *

  
It could have been worse, that’s exactly it. They lose New Hampshire to Rutledge, somehow — three Southerners campaigning in the Northeast, there’s no real way this could’ve gone any better — but Knox comes in dead last with not a single delegate to his name, and by the time they’re ready to decamp to Nevada, Eliza can’t wait to be rid of the Granite State. And, luckily, she gets two full days to herself, a reprieve from the trail back in D.C. A moment to breathe.  
  
Peggy texts her as she’s deplaning at National on Wednesday afternoon. _Dinner tonight?_  
  
_Sure thing,_ Eliza texts back. _Come to my place, though. So tired of restaurant food.  
  
_ Peggy shows up half an hour after Eliza gets home — barely enough time to shower the plane off and put on normal clothes. Her hair’s still damp as she opens the door to her beaming little sister, still dressed in her work clothes, Lockheed Martin ID badge clipped to her lapel, with a gym bag slung over her shoulder.  
  
“Oh, my God, today was insane,” she groans as she steps over the threshold and into Eliza’s foyer. “I can’t believe this — the project I’m working on, the DoD wants us to fast-track it, and we can’t do it. It’s just not possible. I wish I could say more, but, y’know. Classified info. Point is, I’m the point person on this thing, and all of a sudden our department hears ‘We have the SecDef on line one, and he’s pissed—’”  
  
“So you grabbed the phone,” Eliza finishes, already doubled over laughing. “Oh my God.”  
  
“I take it, and I go ‘Hi, Daddy,’ and I swear to God, everyone loses their shit,” giggles Peggy. “It worked out fine, I mean. He listens to me. But I think he really expected to be yelling at some PR person or whatever, not one of the top engineers on the project, so.” She drops her bag and falls onto the couch. “Anyway, I need to drink. Like, I really need to drink. I’m just so done.”  
  
“Sure thing.” Eliza moves to the kitchen, grabs the bottle of elderflower prosecco she left there before Iowa happened. She’d been saving it for a special night with Martha, but Peggy clearly needs it more — then again, Peggy always preferred straight alcohol, but Eliza’s not drinking hard liquor tonight. A prosecco haze is about as much as she wants to to tempt the hangover gods on a weeknight.   
  
She pops the bottle, pours two glasses. “Cheers,” she says as she hands the other to Peggy, who clinks perfunctorily before downing the whole glass.   
  
“This is awesome,” she says. “Can we kill the bottle?”  
  
“Oh, why not,” Eliza agrees politely. No reason to argue, really. It’d just go to waste if they didn’t finish it. She lets Peggy pour herself another glass, and notices her glancing up at the painting above the fireplace, stark against the brick wall.  
  
“Is that new?” Peggy asks, gesturing with her glass. “I don’t remember you having that before.”  
  
Eliza nods. “It’s by a younger artist, this kid Ralph Earl. He’s more of a graphic designer, really, but he dabbles in painting and I think he’s going to be big enough for this to have been a good investment in the future. I’m really seeing him as this generation’s Basquiat. They had a similar backstory, similar upbringing, he was also homeless for a while, and I think the influence is apparent…”  
  
“Mm.” Peggy sips her wine again. “I’ll take your word for it.”  
  
“Sorry. I know this isn’t interesting to anyone but myself.” Eliza bites her lip and shakes her head. “So how’s Stephen?”  
  
Peggy rolls her eyes dramatically. “Insane. He’s trying to get me to move back to New York.”  
  
“Really?” Eliza cocks a brow. She can’t imagine Peggy leaving her job after finally having been promoted into the aeronautical engineering position she’d been angling for. “Do you want to?”  
  
“I’m not really sure,” Peggy says. “I mean, I don’t know. He wants to run for Congress back in New York, and his whole family’s back there, too. And so is Mom. It’d be nice to be close to a support system when we have kids.”  
  
“I guess.” Eliza says nothing. She thinks about how many hours Peggy had put in to earn the position she has, and it makes her a little hesitant to express support. But it’s not her place to judge. “Would you stay with Lockheed?”  
  
“I guess,” she shrugs. “They’re in Oswego, and that’s not too far from Albany. Two and a half hours. I think we could work it out. Anyway…” Peggy tips back what remains of her second glass of wine, and fixes Eliza with a conspiratorial look. “How are you doing? How’s Alex?”  
  
“Oh, he’s fine,” Eliza says absentmindedly. “Busy. We’re both busy. The campaign is crazy.”  
  
“Yeah,” agrees Peggy. “Do you mind if I run to the restroom real quick? Tiny bladder calls, sorry.”  
  
Eliza shrugs, and picks up her phone as Peggy wanders down the hall. She scrolls through her email — their leave of absence from MVC doesn’t seem to have stemmed the steady flow of messages in the least. She rolls her eyes, switches back to her personal inbox — nothing from Angelica. Radio silence over the past few days. That might be for the better, she thinks; she already RSVP’d yes to the dinner, anyway.  
  
Peggy’s boots clatter back down the hall, and Eliza tosses her phone aside as she does, screen still lit up. Peggy gives it a sidelong glance. “What are those, bees?” she asks, gesturing at the lock-screen photo.  
  
Eliza feels her face heat up, quickly grabs her phone and locks it. “Yeah. M—My boss is really into them. She has an apiary on her property and everything.”  
  
“Martha sounds like a weird lady the more I read about her,” Peggy shrugs. “She tries to do the whole ‘Look how normal I am, I’m just like you normals’ thing, but it’s so transparent. I mean, no shade, she’s just doing what Mom and every other politician’s wife does too, but…”  
  
“She’s not like Mom,” Eliza mutters. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just think the bees are cool, that’s all. You want another glass of wine?”  
  
Peggy shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt.”  
  
They relax into comfortable conversation after that, a BBC miniseries about Casanova playing softly on Eliza’s TV as they go back and forth with work anecdotes. Peggy rambles for some time about Stephen’s political ambitions — Eliza, again, dutifully biting her tongue — and they’re both comfortably buzzed by the time Peggy lifts a conspiratorial brow and says, “So. Alex, huh? You guys are coming up on how long?”  
  
Eliza pinches the bridge of her nose. “Like three years,” she says slowly. “Why? You keep asking about him.”  
  
“Mhm,” Peggy hums. “I’m just interested. You know. Sisterly shit.”  
  
“Right.” She shifts in her spot on the couch, stretching out her legs and rolling her ankles. She’s a little stiff. Beside her, Peggy’s still seated criss-cross, chin resting on her folded hands as she bats her eyelashes and smiles.  
  
“I’m just _interested_ ,” Peggy adds, “because there’s, like, no sign of him here. None.”  
  
Eliza’s heart jumps, picks up the pace. “I’m tidy. You know that.”  
  
“Tidy’s one thing. But, like, after three years, wouldn’t there be _something_ here?” Peggy asks. “A shirt, some aftershave and stuff in the bathroom, shoes. A jacket.”  
  
“Like I said,” Eliza says quickly, “I’m just tidy.”  
  
“It doesn’t look like a man’s set foot in this apartment since the broker told you you got it,” Peggy laughs. “Eliza. C’mon. You can tell me—”  
  
“There’s nothing to tell,” Eliza says. Again, too quickly. “Alex, I — I stay over at his house more than anything.”  
  
“Oh, okay. Where does he live?”  
  
“Cleveland Park,” says Eliza.  
  
“And where does your girlfriend live?”  
  
“Near Alexandria.”  
  
She realizes how stupid a trap it was in the first place — an obvious trick question, and she fell for it just like that — but it’s too late. Peggy is giving her that knowing smile, and Eliza starts to stammer a denial, put something together, but Peggy just grins a little wider and shakes her head.  
  
“Knew it,” she says, and Eliza groans.  
  
“That was not a fair trick.”  
  
“Honestly, Eliza? I’ve known for years,” Peggy says. “You’re not subtle! Boarding school, field hockey, Vassar—”  
  
Eliza feels her stomach drop a full six stories at this. Like the old tablecloth magician trick, like Peggy’s just yanked away the stable heteronormative linens that separate the table, the reality, her relationship, Martha — from the place settings that make up the extended Schuyler family. “Does anybody else know?” she asks quietly, weakly, and it’s only then that Peggy frowns and the smile fades from her face.  
  
“No,” Peggy says softly. “I mean, I don’t think so. I’ve never brought it up. I just always kind of figured…” She trails off. “I didn’t think it was that big a deal, honestly? I mean, you obviously seem — you’re just private, y’know, I just thought that was who you are. I didn’t think you were, like, not…”  
  
Eliza takes pity on her, finally interjects. “I’m very… I like to keep things close to the vest,” she says slowly. “I am seeing someone. Yes. She and I have kept that private, and we have our reasons.”  
  
“But you couldn’t even tell me?” Peggy frowns. “Who is this lady, the fucking Queen of England?”  
  
“She’s private. So am I,” Eliza says.   
  
“And Alex?” asks Peggy. “Is he also — what’s actually going on there?”  
  
Eliza shakes her head. “Alex is one of my best friends,” she says. “He’s got his own thing going on. The press decided that we were dating, and we’ve never bothered to set the record straight. That’s all.”  
  
Peggy falls silent at that, shaking her head. “I was just wondering,” she says again. “We’re not — you’re not mad, right?”  
  
“No,” Eliza says, quickly and truthfully. “Of course not. I mean, I’d rather you keep this under your hat, obviously. You know how Mom and Dad are. Just… don’t tell anyone, okay? They’ll find out on my own timeline. Let me handle this.”  
  
“Yeah,” Peggy says after a short pause. “Well. Am I ever gonna meet this lady?”  
  
Eliza shakes her head, drains what’s left of her third glass of prosecco. “Not in the near future,” she says, in her topic-closed, meeting-adjourned tone. “Can we please talk about something else?”  


* * *

  
  
It’s around eleven by the time Peggy finally leaves, and Eliza’s exhausted and a little tipsy as she flips on the bedroom lamp, stripping off her clothes and dropping them into the neat white wicker hamper. Yawning, she yanks open her carry-on luggage, fishing through it for her trusted vibe, but —  
  
_Shit._ She remembers very specifically, now, the clatter it made as it fell to the floor the night before the debate. She _doesn’t_ remember picking it up. Well, that’s one phone call to the Manchester Radisson that she’s certainly not going to make. And she’s got others, but that was her favorite, quiet and dependable —  
  
She rolls her eyes, and reaches for her phone. On impulse, she hits Martha’s contact, then hits ‘call.’  
  
Martha, naturally, picks up on the first ring. “Hi, sweetie,” she says, happy and warm. “How are you?”  
  
Eliza pauses, and her voice comes out a little bit quiet, a little breathy, when she speaks. “Where are you? Are you alone?”  
  
“We just checked into our hotel in Nevada,” comes the answer. “I’m having a nightcap alone with George in the room. George, it’s Eliza,” she adds.   
  
“Oh,” says Eliza, and then, emboldened — loosened by the wine and the weirdness of the night, with a desperate need to _unwind_ creeping under her skin — “I just had half a bottle of prosecco, and I’m kind of tipsy, and I’m thinking about you. And I’m — I’m not wearing anything.”  
  
She hears Martha suck in a little breath at this, and then, “George, sweetheart, why don’t you go check on Alex in his room?” Eliza laughs to herself at the quiet, knowing conversation taking place on the other end, and then Martha is all hers again. “Are you touching yourself, sweetie?”  
  
“Mmm.” Eliza trails her fingers over her skin, over her breasts, her stomach, her hipbones. Her inner thighs. “I was thinking about you the other night, too. The blue dress you like, and how you like when I don’t wear anything underneath it.”  
  
“Isn’t it nice? So soft against your pretty skin,” Martha agrees. “Everyone can tell you’re not wearing underwear, too, everyone can see the outline of your body and your breasts. How your nipples get hard when I so much as graze your thigh.” Eliza’s breath hitches as she presses the ball of her hand against her clit in time. “My pretty, dirty girl. Always ready for me.”  
  
“What if I took it off? During a meeting? Just sat on the table in front of you and undid the ties?” Eliza closes her eyes, her face reddening even as she says it alone to the dark room and Martha on the phone. “Would anyone leave? Or would they just sit there and watch as you played with me?”  
  
“They’d want to watch,” Martha agrees. Eliza can hear the faint buzz of vibration in the background, but she doesn’t grapple through her bedside table for one of her lesser favorites. She concentrates on her fingers, the feeling of hands on her body, thinks about Martha’s soft, elegant hands instead. “They’d love to watch, but I don’t think we’d let them. I could take you into my private office again, wouldn’t you like that, honey? All spread out on my desk?”  
  
“Or tied up on the couch,” Eliza adds insistently. “With my ankles bound to my wrists, all open and ready, just for you. Use the ties from the dress, if you have to.”  
  
“All tied up and dripping, just for me,” Martha says quietly. Eliza’s close — so close — she rubs her clit harder, two fingers moving at top speed as her hips begin to buck off the bed. She can tell Martha’s close too, her voice low and crackling electric as she adds, “I could do whatever I wanted to you there. Remember last year in Hyannis, baby? I could stuff you full of pretty glass toys and watch you struggle to keep them in, helpless and blushing…”  
  
Eliza grits her teeth, eyes tightly shut — she remembers Hyannis, remembers the heavy glass dildo and the matching plug, how Martha had tied her just so, legs spread with ankles above her head and soft silk rope holding her tight to the beach house headboard, fucking her lazily with the dildo before pushing it deep into her cunt and instructing her to stay still — _Don’t drop it, baby, hold on tight_ , and the look on Martha’s face when she’d finally given up —  
  
She comes with a sharp noise, her orgasm singing a theremin along her nerves, and it’s only when she’s come back to her senses that she hears Martha panting her name on the other line.  
  
“Thanks,” Eliza murmurs when it’s all over. “I hope we can actually spend some time together in Nevada.”  
  
“We’ll make time,” Martha promises, her voice a low post-orgasmic purr. Familiar and fur-lined, a comfort to Eliza. “I promise. I miss you, poppy.”  
  
“I miss you, too.” She hangs up with a vague smile, even as the discontent of the evening starts to creep back in. Wraps the grey chenille throw around her body and turns off the lamp.  
  
Sleep doesn’t find her so easily tonight. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time seems to pass more slowly when they’re apart. It figures, she thinks; she and Martha are so rarely separated, their professional lives impermeably intertwined with the private. It strikes Eliza as unflattering — almost needy — to be so put out by a separation of a few days. Neediness — never a good look. So with two days between the time she rejoins the campaign and Martha she throws herself into _not being needy._

The time seems to pass more slowly when they’re apart. It figures, she thinks; she and Martha are so rarely separated, their professional lives impermeably intertwined with the private. It strikes Eliza as unflattering — almost needy — to be so put out by a separation of a few days. Neediness — never a good look. So with two days between the time she rejoins the campaign and Martha she throws herself into _not being needy_.  
  
It’s funny, she thinks; at least she’s productive, on this leave of absence. She cleans her townhouse from top to bottom on Thursday, works up a nice sweat doing it. These floors haven’t been scrubbed in two weeks; she can’t soak in a tub that hasn’t gotten a good deep clean in a few days. Halfway through throwing old condiments out of the fridge, she sees her phone light up across the room, and is nearly tempted to ignore it. She’s in the zone. She’s locked in. But it dings with another text message, and another, and so she resolutely grabs for it and swipes across the screen.  
  
_From: John Laurens  
Eliza! A bunch of us are getting together at the Third Shift tonight for drinks. Are you up for it?  
  
From: Peggy  
Hey girl you should come out to Third Shift tonight…. one last hurrah before you shove off to Nevada???  
  
From: Adrienne Lafayette  
I’m certain you’ve receive a deluge of messages to the point already, but there’s a group outing planned tonight and your presence would be much appreciated. Shall we see you there?_  
  
Eliza frowns as she scrolls through the texts. A deluge, indeed. There’s something odd about this, but she’s not sure what.  
  
There’s a layer of grime beneath her fingernails from the afternoon’s work. She winces, looking at it. Disgusting. Her skin’s going to crawl like she’s got worms under the surface of it until she’s gotten a shower.  
  
She taps out a response to Peggy: _I’ll be there. Tell Jen Lawrence and Adrienne I’ll be there too._  
  
But the strange concentration of messages — the way they’d arrived in a cluster, like a targeted attack — stays with her all the way into the shower. Hot shower. Nearly scalding. Wash away the bleachy smell of the deep-cleaning she’d done that morning as well as the layer of grime she can feel resting atop her body. As a girl, she pored over those old Ranger Rick nature magazines with the pictures of birds and sea otters caught in oil spills. It’s the image that comes to mind every time she’s gone too long getting dirty or without a shower — as if she’s covered in a layer of suffocating, deadly grime. It makes her viscerally uncomfortable, to the point of distraction. Not good.  
  
She washes her hair with jasmine shampoo, lathers her body with lavender castile soap once, twice, another time for good measure. With each pass under the shower spray she feels more of the gnawing anxiety wash away. Closes her eyes, tips her head back and rinses the conditioner out of her hair with a wide-tooth comb.  
  
Her closet has grown large, almost unwieldy. She makes a mental note to cull some of her out-of-season clothing before the spring. But standing in front of the open doors, it occurs to her that she has nothing to wear. The shades of blue, white, and black in various natural fibers are uninspiring. Perhaps she could use some color, as Martha always chides her.  
  
Taupe, she thinks, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she shifts a pile of navy work dresses to the side. She could use a little taupe.  
  
Eliza settles on a simple grey sweater and black jeans; she slides her feet into white oxfords. It’s nearly eight by the time she grabs her keys and heads out the door, hesitating before deciding to drive. She won’t get drunk. Third Shift isn’t the kind of place she gets drunk.

* * *

  
Third Shift isn’t the kind of place where _she_ gets drunk, but that’s not true of the rest of her friends — John greets her with an enthusiastic hug that borders on a tackle as she makes her presence known at the bar, and she can smell the tequila on his breath as they kiss on both cheeks. “Eliza! Baby girl!” He hugs her a little too long, a little too tightly, but she doesn’t mind. John is practically family. “How’s work?”  
  
“Let’s not talk about work,” she says loudly, over the din of the bar. “Anything but work.”  
  
“Really?” Peggy grins as she pulls her into a hug of her own. “That might be the first time I’ve ever heard you say that, sweetie.”  
  
“Shut up.” Eliza shoves her away. “Are Adrienne and Gil here? I was really just hoping to duck in and say hi, I’ve got to pack for Nevada and catch a flight tomorrow —”  
  
“Yeah, they’re around,” Peggy says. “Trust me, though, you’re gonna want to stick around for a while, though.”  
  
“Honestly, I’d love to, but I have things to get done—” She has more to say, but before she can finish, a flurry of movement at the door catches her eye, and she whips her head around. Because it can’t be — it wouldn’t be — but it is —  
  
Angelica has just entered the bar, flanked by Gilbert and Adrienne on either side, beaming like she’s on a red carpet and chatting with lively hands as she does.  
  
There’s a moment of sheer panic. Eliza experiences it almost as if from the outside in — as if she’s looking in on her own wincing discomfort. But it passes as Angelica gets nearer and nearer to where she’s standing, and by the time her sister throws her arms out widely, swooping in for a hug, Eliza has dutifully swallowed down whatever rising swell of bile has just spiked up through her esophagus.  
  
“Angelica!”  
  
“ _Eliza!_ ” Angelica still smells the same as she always has, like Prada Candy and dry cleaning. She pulls Eliza into a tight embrace, swaying from side to side, and Eliza squeezes her eyes shut, relaxing into it. Letting it happen to her.  
  
“You look great!” Eliza says as she finally pulls away, holding Angelica at arm’s length. She does, all in sunset pink and mauve, her lipstick a deep plum.  
  
Angelica laughs, shakes her head. “Please. _You_ look beautiful. You lost weight! You look so good!”  
  
_And there it is._ Eliza forces a giggle, shakes her head. “Probably? Not very much. I’ve been doing pilates.”  
  
“Well, whatever it is, you look phenomenal. My ass is jealous. Literally, you’re tiny.” Angelica squeezes her upper arm affectionately. “Are you eating?”  
  
“Yeah.” Eliza nods tautly. “I’m, uh, on a green thing. Mostly greens.”  
  
“Fair enough.” And then she’s being swept into another round of gleeful hugs, and Eliza shoots a daggered glare at Peggy, who rolls her eyes and shakes her head: _Not sorry_. Peggy’s glancing at her phone, obviously trying to disengage, but Eliza reaches out and grabs her by the arm, tugging her the few steps to the women’s room before she can argue or offer an excuse.  
  
“What the fuck?” Eliza can’t measure her tone or hold her tongue as the restroom door slams behind them. “You just didn’t tell me Angelica was coming home early — why, exactly?”  
  
“Because I knew you wouldn’t show up if you knew she was coming!” Peggy snaps. “I know you. You’d come up with some kind of polite excuse or manage to get an earlier flight to Nevada earlier because your psycho boss needed you to juice her kale greens or something—”  
  
“She’s not a psycho,” Eliza snaps back. “I would have come. I don’t need to be treated like a child.”  
  
“You wouldn’t have. Just admit that.” Peggy folds her arms, facing the sinks. Eliza does the same, mirrors her body language. Their jaws, set intently, look so much alike side by side — too alike for sisters with no biology in common. Eliza shakes her head, rolling her eyes.  
  
“You’re doing the Pinterest mom thing. Where you sneak vegetables into your child’s diet by baking them into brownies or something. I don’t need you to do that, Marguerite. I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions.”  
  
“I didn’t want you to cause a scene.”  
  
“ _Informed consent_ ,” Eliza hisses. “Is a thing.”  
  
“In medicine, not awkward family situations. Oh my _God_ , Eliza.” Peggy rolls her own eyes flamboyantly, pulling her phone from where she’s stashed it in her cleavage, stacked engagement and wedding rings gleaming on her left hand. “You gonna leave now, because you don’t want to deal with this?”  
  
“As a matter of fact, no,” Eliza says coolly. “I’m going to go out there and have a drink.”  
  
“Fine.” Peggy holds the door open for her, gesturing grandly. “Be my guest. After you.”  
  
Eliza walks smoothly through the open door, chin held high, spine straight. Not flinching. She’s a grown woman; she won’t cringe over this. She pastes a smile on her face and lets John tug her back into the fray. Angelica is engaged deep in conversation with the Lafayettes — all the better, Eliza thinks. She slides onto a stool and signals the bartender.  
  
“Can I have two shots of Tito’s?” she asks, in the sweetest tone she can muster. All cotton candy and sugarcane. The bartender smiles, gives her a once-over. He’s cute, objectively, eyes that crinkle at the corners and a reddish beard that doesn’t match his dark hair, but not her type. Not like it matters.  
  
She’s not going to text Martha. She’s not going to be needy. Even though it’s earlier on the West Coast — business hours still, really — she’s not going to text Martha.  
  
She pays for one of the shots. Not the other. Tips graciously anyway, and throws them both back in quick succession, one after the other.

* * *

  
Two hours later, she’s much, much more intoxicated than she intended.  
  
Free shots are free shots, she rationalizes, so she’s not going to argue when John and Adrienne are pressing them into her hands. “One last night of freedom!” she chirps in a tone that’s veering dangerously close to Whoo Girl. “One last night, you guys!”  
  
Gil rolls his eyes. “Freedom is not the word,” he drawls. “You are going to Nevada, not to prison.”  
  
“Same difference,” she says, rolling her eyes. Angelica remains curiously silent throughout; she doesn’t speak directly to Eliza even as the drinks keep flowing. She talks in circles, remaining cagy and only flashing knowing smiles when the subject of her early homecoming is raised — “You weren’t supposed to be home until March!” someone says, and Angelica only laughs, shakes her head and shrugs.  
  
“That’s life,” she says. “It’s wild, but that’s life.”  
  
Eliza’s careening past tipsy and well into drunk by the time she checks her watch. 12:31. This isn’t good; she has so much to do tomorrow. “Guys, I gotta get home,” she shouts, starts waving everyone into happy goodbye hugs, but Angelica closes a hand over her wrist and shakes her head.  
  
“Baby girl, you’re wasted,” she says. “I’m driving you.”  
  
“I’m getting a cab,” Eliza protests, pulling her wrist away, but Angelica shakes her head.  
  
“I’m gonna drive you,” she repeats. “Give me your keys.” But she’s already snaking her hand into Eliza’s handbag, and pulling out the keys to her Lexus.  
  
Eliza rolls her eyes. Her sober, smarter self tells her: _You can’t argue with her. Your sister is right_. Her drunker, more impulsive self says: _Watch me_.  
  
Her sober self wins the argument, even when her drunk self is screaming that this is unmitigated bullshit. She allows Angelica to lead her out to her car and corral her into the passenger seat, even as she groans internally — and a bit externally, too — with every step. It’s just — this is bullshit. She’s perfectly capable of cabbing home. She says so as well: “You know, I’ve gotten myself home before. I live ten blocks away. It’s my neighborhood bar. That’s why I get drunk here.”  
  
Angelica just shakes her head, sticks the keys into the ignition and fires it up. “Same address as always?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Nice neighborhood.” She pulls out of the parking lot. “Thank God I wasn’t drinking tonight. I thought I might have to drive someone home. Truth be told, I’m not surprised it’s you.”  
  
“Really?” Eliza rolls her eyes. “You should be.”  
  
“Nah. I know you, Eliza. I know how you get when you’ve got someone here to take care of you.” Angelica smiles at her fondly as they stop at a red light, and Eliza keeps her face steady, tries not to laugh in response. It wouldn’t be the right type of laughter, her sober self tells her.

* * *

  
The drive to her apartment takes fewer than five minutes, even with Angelica — ever the careful driver — behind the wheel. She pulls up in front, and Eliza’s set to hop out and let Angelica drive her car back to the bar, for all she cares. She wants to take off her makeup and fall face-first into bed after pounding two tumblers of water first. But Angelica walks with her up the steps and into her townhouse.  
  
“Is that a new painting?” Angelica comments as they step over the threshold. “I like it.”  
  
“Mm,” Eliza says. “Yep. Ask Peggy about it, I told her all about the guy yesterday. I like his stuff. Might buy more of it.”  
  
“Really?” Angelica says. “That’s such a bold move. Art’s a risky market.”  
  
“Well, yes,” Eliza says, faltering. “But I think it’s a good move. I don’t know.” Her sober self is watching her closely, arms tightly folded, tapping fingers against her upper arms and shaking her head, but her drunk self wants to tell a secret. Wants to be closer to her sister. She has so many secrets to tell, too — no reason not to give this harmless little one away. “I took a leave of absence from MVC.”  
  
“For the campaign, right. I heard,” Angelica says patiently. “Do you have pajamas anywhere?”  
  
Eliza ignores her, kicks off her shoes and crosses to the kitchen to fill up her giant water glass. She downs half of it in one go before coming up for air. “Not just for the campaign,” she says conspiratorially. “It’s more, like — I don’t know if I’m coming back. Y’know. If we win, I don’t have to, but if we don’t, I think I might go into the art business.”  
  
She watches Angelica’s face intently, searching for any sort of reaction — preferably approval. But Angelica just cocks a brow and shakes her head very slightly. “You’re too smart to be a gallery girl, Eliza,” she says. “Someone with your brain belongs in business or politics. Get some sleep, okay?”  
  
With that, Angelica sets the keys on the coffee table and buttons up her coat. “I’m just going to walk back to the bar. We have to have lunch and catch up soon,” she says.  
  
“Yeah,” Eliza echoes quietly. “After I get back from Nevada.”  
  
“Right. Best of luck there.” Angelica smiles again, wide with bright white teeth, and blows her a kiss. “Get some rest, sweetie.”  
  
The door clicks shut behind her, and Eliza grabs the water glass and downs the rest of it, then refills it.  
  
_I don’t know what you expected_ , chides her sober self, a little louder and more coherent now. She shakes her head and stomps toward the bathroom, forgetting briefly — but quickly remembering, with a rush of remorse — the neighbors in the English basement downstairs. _Sorry,_ she mouths at the floor. _The night was a mistake from start to finish_.

She doesn't text Martha.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nevada — another caucus state. Another strange electoral fever dream, wildly undemocratic in nature, but this one situated neatly in the middle of the desert. Like a mirage shimmering above arid pavement.

The flight to Nevada is uneventful, even with a significant hangover. Eliza naps fitfully, waking up to decline snacks and accept a hot towel; her body feels both stuff and wrung out, like a washcloth a couple days past the point of needing to be washed. 

The dry air in Las Vegas doesn't help, either. Nevada — another caucus state. Another strange electoral fever dream, wildly undemocratic in nature, but this one situated neatly in the middle of the desert. Like a mirage shimmering above arid pavement, it feels strangely like she's home.

Because that's what it is, she realizes, as she pulls her rental Kia into the hotel parking lot and checks into her campaign-financed single room. This is her home away from home until further notice, so long as George remains in the race. He greets her with a warm handshake in the campaign suite; Martha pats the empty seat beside her. Eliza slumps into it, exhausted but still, seemingly, home.

"Listen up, people," Alex says as he scrolls through something on his laptop. "We're here to talk strategy. The day and a half in Carson City could make or break us — Lafayette ran some numbers on the more rural counties and it looks as though they're all solidly pulling for Rutledge. But if we carry the urban centers and the blue-collar manufacturing areas as we did in Iowa, there's a chance we can pull something out of our asses before Super Tuesday. So what we're going to do is..."

Eliza is only half-paying attention, her mind still hazy from napping on the flight. She can tell Alex is correct in his reasoning, can tell that everyone else in the room more or less trusts him implicitly. Data, and verve. Facts and logic and the ability to spit them out with astounding charisma. Those have been Alex's strengths as long as she's known him, and perhaps they're strengths she'll never quite know in such even quantities herself. But it's enough —

"For obvious reasons, we can't spend too much time here in Vegas, or at least, we can't look as though we're enjoying it," Alex says. "But on the other hand, Las Vegas is the state's largest metropolitan area by far; it's got the most robust economy. If we ignore it completely we're gonna risk losing the whole state. As a strategist, I'm gonna have to ask you all to limit your, ah, indulgences while you're here. Don't tell anyone who you work for. Don't embarrass the campaign."

George nods and adds, "Senior staff meeting in 10. Everyone else, please reconvene tomorrow morning at your specified locations. Get a good night's sleep, everyone."

Alex is deep in his pile of iPads and folders, so Eliza doesn't bother to hang around playing the doting girlfriend. She follows Martha out of the suite and down the hall of the hotel. "I thought we might have an early dinner," Martha says. "George and I don't have to go out and shake any hands until tomorrow, so we've got the night free."

"Good," Eliza says. "I've missed you."

Martha smiles, squeezes her shoulder affectionately as they turn the corner. "I've missed you too," she says warmly. "It's been a rough few weeks. I know."

Eliza hesitates, feeling a familiar tug in her stomach, the ill-at-ease sensation that bubbles up whenever she thinks about — all of this. The election, the future, them. All of it. "You want to just order room service?" she says instead. "I don't think — there's not many restaurants I'm drawn to right now."

"Room service sounds fine," Martha says. She pulls her key card from her wallet and dips it into the slot outside her suite. "George and I have separate rooms for the week, by the way. He's up much too early in the mornings for meetings. It was cutting into my sleeping schedule."

Eliza smiles as the door slams heavily shut behind them. Martha's suite is much, much nicer than her own. She kicks off her heels, sits down in a heavy taupe armchair and crosses her legs demurely, as she watches Martha begin to undress. Shoes, jacket, the first few buttons of her cream-colored blouse. "Are you hungry? I could go for dinner at some point."

Martha pauses in her unbuttoning, raises an eyebrow. "Would you like to tell me why you sound so upset?"

She knows. _Of course she knows_ , Eliza thinks. There's no reason why she wouldn't — Martha knows her better than anyone else. "It's not very important," Eliza says wanly, but Martha only shakes her head.

"Is it about your sister again?"

"Well, yes. Kind of," Eliza says with a wavy little hand gesture. "Both of them. I guess I should — you know Peggy?"

"The little one? The engineer?" Martha clicks her tongue. "You always got along with her, haven't you?"

Eliza nods. "It's not that we aren't getting along now. It's just that... The other night I had her over for dinner, and she guessed that Alex and I aren't — she figured out that it's a ruse. And then she asked where my _girlfriend_ lived."

She sees Martha's eyebrows go up at this, the little look of worry flit across her face. "You didn't tell her—" she begins, and Eliza shakes her head rapidly.

"No, no, that's too dangerous. I wouldn't. But I'm still worried. I haven't exactly done the whole thing yet, with my family. I always thought coming out was a bit overwrought, to tell the truth? That when I began seriously dating a woman, I'd just introduce her as any of my sisters introduced their boyfriends and that would be the end of it. But, you know, college relationships aren't really meet-the-parents material — and I dated a man for a while in grad school — and then you, and I can't exactly..." Eliza throws up her hands, a helpless little noise coming unbidden from the back of her throat. "I don't know. I wanted everything to happen on my timeline, but I also like my privacy. I didn't want it to happen with anyone else in control. But that's not the problem, really, it's Angelica."

Martha has been standing for some time, her blouse half-unbuttoned and the task forgotten. She nods at this, taking a seat on the bed. "You two used to be very close, didn't you? You've never told me what happened."

Eliza shakes her head, her face warm with irritation at the reminder. "It's not worth getting into. And she still thinks we're close, that's the thing. It isn't as if we don't get along, she just — she's a lot of _person_. She wants what's best for me, but she doesn't really stop to think about whether what I want and what she wants for me are actually the same thing. She's just... I love her, and she really loves me, but I feel like she still thinks she has to protect me and tell me what to do for my own good." She exhales heavily, then takes another heaving breath. This feels good. When she went to therapy, it always felt a bit like this. Like ripping off a strip of wax: the anticipation is always worse than the instantaneous and cathartic moment of pain. "I guess the thing here is that I don't know what she wants. She moved back from London almost completely unannounced," _while still managing to make the largest fanfare imaginable about it_ , Eliza thinks (but doesn't say) bitterly, "and she won't discuss the impetus with anyone. It's weird. Something's up."

"Have you thought at all about what it might be?" Martha asks, and Eliza shrugs.

"Peggy and I were speculating. Peggy thinks she's pregnant and doesn't want to raise her child in London. Which I think is ludicrous, because there's nothing Angelica would love more than having an English baby. It would set her apart from everyone else we know in the way she likes to be different." A shrug, and Eliza fiddles with the ends of her hair. She could use a trim. She watches Martha from the corner of her eye; the way she softens and shakes her head sadly.

"Is that all?" Martha asks, and Eliza sighs and shakes her own head.

"Just one more thing," she says. "And you've got to promise not to — I understand this is silly, and shallow, and selfish." She picks up the pace of her words, rushing to get them all out before Martha can interject. "I've been investing little chunks of my trust fund and my investments into art, you know? The Ralph Earl painting arrived from New York last week, and I hung it in my living room. It looks fantastic. So when Angelica brought me home from the bar last night — and I wasn't that drunk, she's just overprotective — she commented on it, and it was just a bit odd, the way she reacted."

Martha looks bemused, patting the bed beside her. Eliza goes to sit beside her, a little unsteady. "What's so silly or selfish about that?" Martha asks. "It's obviously your passion, sweetie. Why shouldn't you follow your bliss?"

Eliza raises both eyebrows, looks at her askance. "Angelica said I'm too smart to be an art girl."

"With all due respect to your sister, dear, Angelica doesn't seem know your strengths. Or that you're most productive and exceptional when you're passionate about what you're doing." One hand descends on Eliza's bare knee, and she exhales with the weight of it. "I don't think you'd waste your time seriously pursuing anything you couldn't excel at. Don't let her dissuade you."

There's an immense sense of calm that rises through Eliza as the words settle inside her. She leans her head against Martha's shoulder, closing her eyes, breathing in the Guerlain and the sweet, familiar scent of her body wash. "I love you," she murmurs, and feels Martha stroke her hair softly with one hand, leans into it even more. "I'm sorry. I just — I needed this."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Martha says. She sounds as if she means it.

 

* * *

 

**three years earlier**

 

 

The perks of working for a company like MVC are so numerous as to be nearly impossible to count. Perhaps not so much on the very ground level, on the junior-associate floor, but three weeks after her surprise promotion to Martha Washington's executive assistant, Eliza can already feel herself becoming jaded to the unprecedented access and efficiency of her new position.

There's a charity ball at the National Gallery, for which MVC is a top sponsor. The thing is, Eliza wasn't supposed to be here at all — Martha hadn't planned to attend herself. But at three p.m. on the Friday of, Eliza hears a clipped phone conversation coming from Martha's office, and then a new appointment dings into her calendar:  _Robin Hood Foundation Ball, National Gallery, 8PM. Added by: Martha Washington_.

She frowns, and nervously clicks 'attending.' Then she rises from her desk, brushes out the front of her skirt, and knocks, hesitant, on Martha's door. "You can come in," she hears, and presses down on the handle to step through the frosted glass. 

"Ma'am?" she asks. "Was I intentionally added to that appointment?"

Martha looks up from her computer monitor, nods briefly. "Unfortunately. Lawrence is feeling unwell."

"Okay," says Eliza uncertainly. "Well, this is unexpected, but I suppose I can't complain. Although I'm not exactly dressed for it—"

"Not a problem, sweetie," Martha says absentmindedly. "I've already called my personal shopper; she'll bring us a few options. I had you at..." And here she gives Eliza a long once-over, raking her eyes over her body in a way that makes her feel exposed, though not quite uncomfortable. "A size four?"

Eliza swallows, nods. "Thereabout. Sometimes a two, with vanity sizing."

"Very good. I hope you like navy," Martha says, returning her attention to her work. "I like you in navy myself."

* * *

 

The dresses that arrive are uniformly lovely; Martha goes with the white Stella McCartney and settles on a navy Valentino for Eliza herself. It fits like a glove, navy silk chiffon that falls in an elegant column to her heels. She changes in her office, fixes her hair up as best she can with the hairpins scattered at the bottom of her handbag. It's a little after seven when they slide into a car bound for the National Gallery, and Eliza is still tapping away nervously on her phone, consumed by the flights she's got to book for their trip to San Francisco next week, until Martha shoots her a placid look. 

"You're not really on the clock right now," Martha says. "You can relax."

"You didn't really need me to come with you?" Eliza asks, confused. "But I thought —"

Martha shrugs. "I wanted you to. Someone from MVC has to make an appearance, and if it has to be me, I'd rather bring you with me than any of the partners. I hope you understand."

Eliza pauses, taking this in. Unsure of what she means by it, but flattered nonetheless. "That's very kind." Martha is smiling at her, and Eliza swallows, caught off-guard yet again. She slides her phone back into her bag, sets it aside. The drive through rush hour traffic should be excruciating, but their driver takes shortcuts, speeding over surface streets, and they arrive at the party by 8:30, just in time to take their seats for dinner.

The gala itself is as to be expected. Neil Young performs, and Eliza picks through the gift bag with vague disinterest: Nationals tickets, gift cards, a box of Godiva chocolates with the MVC logo embossed on the gold box. Martha mostly keeps up a running patter with the others at their table, and Eliza follows along as best she can, cataloguing each of their names, jobs, and identifying characteristics for future reference. It's only after the dinner concludes that she feels Martha tap her softly on the shoulder.

"I'm going to get some air, if you'd like to come with me," Martha says quietly. It's a suggestion, but not a request. Eliza considers it for a moment before nodding promptly.

They slip out of the room, wandering out into the museum proper. She expects a guard to pop out at any moment, but no one does; the security seems to have been concentrated around the gala itself. "This would be the night to pull off the perfect crime," she comments as they stroll through the West Building. "So much wealth concentrated in one place. No one guarding the Monets."

"I thought you preferred Cassatt," Martha says with a wry little smile, and Eliza giggles — blames the champagne internally as she stops herself. _Unprofessional._

"I do," she says, "but I'm going for resale value here."

"In that case, why not shoot for the stars? Van Gogh?"

"Well, if I'm looking for something that I can sell to a Russian oligarch," Eliza says, matter-of-factly, "I'd rather not start falling into the 'priceless' range. But yes, on my own time, out of the impressionists, Cassatt is my lady."

"She painted mostly women, didn't she?" Martha comments. "I remember that from my own art history class in college. Granted, it was a while ago, it's about all I remember..."

"Mm," Eliza agrees. "And she was primarily self-taught. She loathed the Salon and found men patronizing, though she got along with Degas. Never married, either, though she had a great fondness for the family unit and seemed to adore children and admire motherhood. I find it..."

"Hm?"

"Comforting," Eliza says after a moment of hesitation. "And familiar. Her work is very feminine."

There's a silence between them, punctuated only by the clicking of their heels on the marble floor of the gallery. Then Martha clears her throat. "Let's go out to the sculpture garden," she suggests. "Fresh air would be nice."

It's warm and balmy outside, but not oppressive, the heat of the day having finally broken into a pleasant night broken occasionally by the faint stirrings of a breeze. Eliza holds the skirt of her dress carefully above her shoes as they walk through the garden, the bubbling of the fountains in the background, the night lit by cool lights and the floodlights coming from the gala inside. It's quiet as they sit on a bench, Martha finally adjusting her body on the bench to face Eliza at an angle.

"Thanks for coming with me tonight, dear," she says, and Eliza tries not to react to the warmth, the familiarity, the pet name -- tries to keep her poker face straight, tries  _valiantly_ not to show her own hand here.

"Thank you for inviting me," she replies carefully. "It's been a lovely night. I don't know what I'd be doing otherwise."

Martha laughs. "You're young. You should be out enjoying it. Do something wild."

"I wish I had the capacity for recklessness," Eliza admits. "I don't think I've ever made a reckless decision in my life. Even the things I think of as rebellious, either I agonized over whether to do them for weeks beforehand, or I made certain that I could keep them private. Or both."

Martha's laughing again, shaking her head. "You grew up in politics. I don't suppose I can fault you for that."

"My father always impressed upon us the importance of  _image_ ," Eliza nods. "It's all about the optics for us. I'm the best-behaved out of a family of well-behaved women."

"You know what they say about well-behaved women," Martha says wryly.

"That they never make history?"

"No, they make history. Playing by the rules is the only way to do that anymore. But their little secrets are all the more interesting for it." 

The silence screams between them for a moment, before Martha stands up abruptly. "It's a long drive back to Mount Vernon, so I think it's time to call it a night. I can get you a separate cab."

"Thank you," Eliza says automatically, rising to meet her. "Thank you for the whole night. I'll have the dress cleaned and returned to you by Monday."

Martha shakes her head, waving her hand absently through the balmy night air. "Don't worry, sweetheart. We'll expense it. You ought to have something to wear to events like these. I think you'll be attending more of them."  


When the cab driver drops her at her door in Georgetown, Eliza thanks him profusely, wishes him a good night. It's nearly midnight. She hurries up the steps to her apartment, feeling a bit like Cinderella, racing the clock —

Well-behaved women don't think about their employers the way she's thinking about Martha Washington. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Las Vegas is no city for well-behaved women.

Las Vegas is no city for well-behaved women. The campaign has Martha out meeting with women's interest groups, schools, Girl Scouts, and more middle-class working women than any of them have ever seen. The normal people, the Real Americans, are fine but wary. Eliza and Martha are warier.  
  
"You looked fine, don't worry about it," Eliza murmurs after pulling Martha away from a gaggle of young women at a diner who had looked askance at her hair, her dress, everything. The diners are the worst. The scheduled drop-ins with George, Martha standing behind him to smile and wave and Eliza standing behind her to whisper spur-of-the-moment instructions and keep a critical eye on the crowd — those are the absolute worst. Martha is smoothing out invisible wrinkles in her dress, though, looking more than a little worried.  
  
They get in the bus and drive to Henderson, all four of them, the potential First Couple with their eagle-eyed assistants behind them — George has swapped out Alex for a handsome younger kid, with Alex back at the campaign headquarters raising holy hell over an unflattering op-ed in the Review-Journal — and they tour a chocolate factory, George and Martha both pretending that they eat refined sugar. George's new assistant scoops up a handful of free samples at the end. Eliza eyes him critically. He won't last long, she can tell. Alex may be a shameless flirt, but the idea of George working with someone like this, younger and nimble and square-jawed, can't sit comfortably with him.  
  
"You shouldn't do that," Eliza whispers to Ben as he pops the last of the chocolates in his mouth. "It's bad for optics. Makes us look like we don't feed you."  
  
He blinks, dully, a little thick on the uptake. "Wouldn't it have been rude if none of us had taken any?"  
  
"You take _one_ ," she says harshly, her voice coming out in a snarling hiss, and she cringes internally even as she does it. She couldn't sound any more like her mother if she tried. But Mother was right, at least about the candy shop in Raleigh; it was bad for optics and her sticky chocolate-smeared fingers and mouth probably were why they lost South Carolina. Eliza rolls her eyes, jerks her head in the direction of Ben's own fingers, smudged with dark chocolate. "Purell yourself, please, we're leaving soon."  
  
Back at the campaign headquarters, Alex and Kitty are on a conference call with Lafayette and his team back in D.C., but Alex waves merrily as Eliza slides through the door. He looks spirited — manic, but spirited. Eliza gestures for him to join her near the door, and Alex does, Kitty shooting them both a strange look as he goes.  
  
"I don't like George's new assistant," she says bluntly, and Alex cocks a brow, gives a breathy little laugh like he's been punched in the gut.  
  
"Yeah," he says, "neither do I, really. Why? What'd he do?"  
  
"He behaved in what I would describe as a tacky manner not befitting the campaign's image," she says, choosing her words carefully. "I think he could use a refresher on his responsibilities as a representative of the campaign."  
  
"What, did he get caught on camera getting a lap dance or something?" Alex frowns. "I need to know what I'm bitching him out for."  
  
Eliza sighs. "He overindulged in free samples at the Ethel M. Chocolate Factory."  
  
She sees Alex go from taking her seriously to decidedly not in the ten seconds it takes for her to deliver the news; a disbelieving smirk passes over his face before he coughs and turns it into something else. "I, uh, okay. I don't think that's a problem, necessarily."  
  
"It doesn't look good. I think we need to be sending the right message that none of us are freeloaders or desperate."  
  
"Eliza, you know me. If there's free food anywhere, I'm gonna stuff my face with it," Alex says calmly. "I just don't think we need to be getting on our underpaid personal assistant's case because he saw a plate of free chocolates and reacted the way any sane person would."  
  
Eliza folds her arms, straightening her spine. Alex's tone, his plaintive, snickering, _I-know-better-than-you_ voice he uses when dealing with Senate aides and nosy interns, sounds like nails on a chalkboard right now. "I just thought you'd like to know. I'm sorry to have bothered you."  
  
"You didn't," Alex falters. "I just, y'know, it'd be hypocritical of me to get on his shit for that. Especially after the thing with the deviled eggs."  
  
"Whatever," she mutters, making a dismissive gesture with her hand. "We'll talk later. I think Kitty wants you."

 

* * *

 

Las Vegas is dull. Carson City is worse. Rutledge has been working the hinterlands, shaking hands and kissing babies all over the reddest counties, and Knox is doing his damndest to split the difference between them, "bless his heart," Martha comments dryly. But none of them have a chance against Patrick Henry in the general, outside of the urban centers. George especially. But even as Rutledge waffles over a softball question about the DREAM Act, landing maybe three inches further to the right than George himself, Henry is sweeping up votes all over the state. The other Republicans never had a chance.  
  
A cold snap hits them in Carson City, chilling Eliza down to the bone, and she shivers through an outdoor rally at a park and a flagpole dedication ceremony outside a post office. George has the afternoon booked at an Air Force base, and Martha at a library. And so they separate, Eliza tagging along dutifully half a step behind her, feeling worn and tightly wound.  
  
"It's a little tiring," Martha says in the car en route to the library downtown. "The libraries and beauty salons and schools. They don't seem to want me going anywhere _substantial_."  
  
Eliza takes a deep breath. "I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to," she admits. "It's more than tiring, it's obnoxious. They want you to compete with Beth, which doesn't exactly make much sense to me, as neither of you are running for President yourself."  
  
Martha chuckles. "Didn't you see the Times today?" she asks. "John Hancock described George and myself as 'prospective co-presidents.'"  
  
"Because that would be so bad?" Eliza scoffs. "I don't see how having two intelligent, qualified people with significant experience in both military and finance running the country would somehow be to its detriment. You're hardly the Beverly Hillbillies."  
  
Martha sighs, shaking her head. She runs the flat of her hand over her sleek, styled hair. A distress signal Eliza recognizes from meetings gone awry. "It's strange, isn't it, how the presidency has become one of the few high-profile jobs in this country for which inexperience is considered a qualification?"  
  
"Again, you said it." Eliza rolls her eyes. "Rutledge has been in office for, what, four years? And Henry, not even that much. He's a _movie star_.”  
  
"He's a great orator." Martha shakes her head. "I'm a little wary of that one, truth be told.”

"Aren't we all." Eliza huffs and returns to her phone, tapping out two short email replies in the time it takes for their red light to flash green again.  
  
By the time the car pulls up at the library, Martha seems to have worked out the tension from her own shoulders, but she shakes her head briefly at the Kind bar Eliza offers -  _Sugar, sweetie_ , she mouths - and walks inside on the librarian's introduction, head held high and smiling toothily.

 

* * *

 

They win Nevada by the skin of their teeth. It's a tense night, the caucus proving even more complicated and loathsome a process than in Iowa, but by one in the morning the press has called it for Washington, and it seems as though every single body in their campaign's hotel suite is running on some mixture of adrenaline, anxiety, and the case of 5-Hour Energy that Alex has moved to mainlining instead of Red Bull.  
  
"We won!" Alex is screeching, jumping up and down with his arms around both George and Eliza herself, and Eliza can't hold back the contagious giddiness -- it all feels worth it in this moment. Winning always feels worthwhile. She always forgets how great it feels to win until she does. Not you, the campaign, she tries to remind herself, but a fat load of good that does. She still can't strike the grin from her face as she lets Alex sweep her into a tight hug.  
  
Martha clears her throat behind them, and Eliza finds herself being passed over to her arms instead. Not as though she's complaining. She falls into a tight embrace, returns it herself; the fervent atmosphere of celebration is enough to cover the way Martha leans into her ear and whispers, "I got you a present, sweetheart."  
  
Eliza grins and adjusts enough to press her chest fully against Martha's as she whispers back, "I can't wait to open it."  
  
"That's my girl." Martha squeezes her again before letting her go. "It's late enough that I doubt we'll be missed if I walk you back to your room."  
  
The walk back to her hotel room is torturously long; the room itself is almost painfully unglamorous. The Carson City ExtendedStay America is hardly the Ritz to begin with, but after nearly two weeks, Eliza's room is beginning to feel like a sandpaper-sheeted prison. But she doesn't say anything about this — doesn't make mention that she'd rather be doing this in Martha's own, much nicer suite — just lets her key open the door from behind, breathing warm in her ear, and presses her body back against Martha's front as the lock clicks open.  
  
There's a shopping bag in her bed that wasn't there this morning; Eliza is momentarily struck curious as to how it got here, what hotel maid Martha bribed to drop it off. This seems a little dangerous. But all that fades away as she gets close enough to view the shop name on the bag: one of their favorite lingerie boutiques, the Vegas outpost in the Bellagio.  
  
"I saved it for our last night in this godforsaken desert," Martha murmurs as she watches Eliza pull the ribbon loose atop the box. "I thought it might make a fine celebratory moment, or consolation, if luck would've had it that way—"  
  
Eliza bites her lip as she lifts the lid. Yes, this is familiar, she's seen this one before, lusted after it in person and on the website: a playsuit, more harness than functional lingerie, all onyx-black and strappy with a single thick strip of woven black fabric down the front connected to a pair of cage panties. Nothing about it is wearable or practical. Everything about this was made for sex.  
  
"You shouldn't have," she murmurs as she lifts it from the box. "I mean -- it's perfect. Would you like me to put it on?"  
  
Martha hums thoughtfully, considering. "I'm going to fix myself a drink," she nods. "You can go into the bathroom and freshen up."  
  
She does. She steps into the bathroom, still fully dressed; kicks off her heels as she runs a brief shower, just enough to rinse off the grime of the day, her hair pulled up atop her head. She looks twice at herself in the half-fogged mirror as she steps out of the tub — it looks good, romantic, and she keeps it like that as she towels off and steps into the strappy garment. It covers almost nothing. It might look nice under a sheer shirt, a tease during late office hours.  
  
She spritzes a single burst of perfume on her wrists, dabs them behind her ears. Sniffs.  
  
“Ma’am?” She’s cautious as she steps into her heels again and cracks open the door. Her heart speeds up a little. Stepping into the room, she takes it in: Martha’s lounging on the ugly bedclothes, in her own blouse and skirt, jacket slung over a chair; she’s got a drink from the minibar in one hand and the TV on mute across the room. It feels —  
  
“Hi, beautiful,” Martha says quietly. “You look great.”  
  
“I’m all yours,” Eliza says hesitantly. “I feel — it’s beautiful.”  
  
“Mm.” Martha takes another sip of her drink, then sits up straight on the edge of the bed, setting the glass aside. “Come over here. Twirl for me.” Eliza does, self-conscious yet feeling sexier as she turns around once, and then again. She takes another step closer, lets Martha run a hand up her leg to her thigh — squirms a little as those fingers skim upward, skirting the heat of her core. She feels too tall in her heels, but doesn’t take them off. Not yet.  
  
“Can I touch you?” She doesn’t know why she bothers to ask — the formality just feels necessary, the way Martha’s looking at her with an appraising eye. But off Martha’s nod, she takes another step closer, rests both hands on Martha’s shoulders and lowers herself down to straddle her lap.

 

* * *

  
  
She wakes up to her dinging iPhone alarm with Martha’s arm draped over her side, a little chilly despite their shared body heat in the bed.  
  
“It’s five a.m.,” she mutters through clenched teeth and a fuzzy head. “We have to get up.”  
  
Martha shakes her head. “Flight’s not until ten,” she says into the pillow. “We’ll be fine. Set it for six.”  
  
Eliza hesitates. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Just set it for six, and if you can’t fall asleep again, at least lie back down.”  
  
She does so, with pause. Not that the warmth of the bed isn’t appealing compared to the rest of the freezing room — she burrows back under the covers and feels Martha pull her closer, chin against shoulder, pressing a fuzzy early-morning kiss to her cheekbone. This is a dangerous game, though; they only have so long before someone’ll be sent looking for them, and —  
  
“I can’t fall asleep,” Eliza says, brittle. She shakes her head, slides out of bed. “I’m sorry. Once I’m up, I’m up. You know that.”  
  
Martha begins to stir, but then appears to think twice. She drops back to the pillow as Eliza wraps a robe around herself and strides to the bathroom. She doesn’t hear her slip out with the shower running full blast, but when she opens the door again, it’s to an empty room.  
  
Instinctively, immediately, she feels terrible. When she shows up to the Washingtons’ suite at 6:15, though, dressed in her yoga pants and a wraparound sweater, knocking hesitantly, Martha opens the door for her, wrapped in a plush robe of her own and looking as though she just woke up.  
  
“I brought you coffee,” Eliza says, holding up the Starbucks cup. “Blonde roast. And an almond croissant.”  
  
Martha softens. “Split it with me?” she asks, opening the door a little wider. Eliza edges inside. She’s met by an exhausted-looking Alex, the dark circles beneath his eyes only more prominent in the dry incipient light starting to stream in from the sides of the blackout curtains, sitting cross-legged in the middle of one of the two king beds. George is doing push-ups on the floor as Alex watches him with vague interest, in between flicking through the three newspapers spread out in front of him.  
  
“Morning,” Eliza murmurs to Alex, who yawns at her theatrically.  
  
“Is it?” he asks. “Or is it ass-fifteen at the crack of dawn? I’d love to be able to sleep in for two hours after a day like yesterday. Where’s my croissant?”  
  
“I would’ve brought you one, too, had I known you’d be here,” Eliza says politely. Too early to banter. “Are you okay? You look so…” She almost says ‘exhausted,’ but pulls back just in time; so impolite.  
  
Alex, for his part, seems to pick up the meaning. “Been better,” he says casually as George finishes his push-ups and hoists himself off the ground, face and neck glimmering with sweat above the crew neck of his Duke t-shirt. He kisses Alex chastely on the cheek.  
  
“I’ll be in the shower,” George tells him, and Alex waggles his brow.  
  
“ _We’ll_ be in the shower?”  
  
“Not with the girls here,” George says firmly. “Eliza, good morning. I apologize for my appearance.”  
  
“Not at all,” Eliza waves it off. “I’m sure I look exhausted. Did you sleep well?”  
  
George shrugs, padding across the room in his grey sweatpants. Eliza politely averts her eyes from the bulge beneath the waistband. “We’ve all been better-rested.”  
  
As he closes the bathroom door behind him, Eliza looks to Martha, who is delicately using a plastic knife from the hotel’s continental breakfast lounge to slice the croissant in half. “I have to apologize for this morning,” she says. “I just — I worry. With the press, and all. I don’t think it’s a wise idea to test the bounds right now.”  
  
“No, no, you’re quite right,” Martha says. “Especially with what they’ve already been saying about me —”  
  
Eliza furrows her brow. “What are they saying?” she asks. “I haven’t seen anything —"  
  
“Oh, God, is this about the Gawker thing again?” Alex says, looking up from one of his newspapers on the bed. “Maria’s a clickbait hack, you really can’t take that personally.”  
  
Martha pauses with her coffee halfway to her lips. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t believe you were the one described as having a smile ‘as glazed as an Easter ham.”  
  
“Come on,” Alex groans. “She’s not funny, but she's also not important. Nobody takes her seriously. Even when I was a blogger, everybody thought Gawker was trash. It’s not worth paying attention to.”  
  
“It hasn’t just been Maria Reynolds, you know.” Martha sets down her coffee cup, tightening the sash on her hotel bathrobe and folding her arms across her chest. “The mainstream media's been all over me and Beth Rutledge. The little comparisons. Don’t think those slip past me—”  
  
“And you usually come out better for it!” Alex says, loudly, louder than necessary. “Everyone thinks she’s a Stepford wife and you’re the second coming of—”  
  
“I don’t want to see any more of it,” Martha says firmly. “Not from Ms. Reynolds, at the very least. Do what you have to do.”  
  
Eliza shoots a wary look in Alex’s direction, watching as he flops backward onto the bedclothes, grabbing for his phone. “I’ll shoot her an email,” he says quietly. “But there’s no way asking this isn’t going to backfire.”


End file.
